The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (52 page)

SNEAK PEEK:

“The King’s Sons”

Finish the Herezoth trilogy in late 2013!

PROLOGUE

Francie Rafe
had worked on the king’s Magic Council for ten years now, so the budgets she
studied, all for the school the council had founded as its first project, were
nothing unfamiliar. If anything, she deemed them mundane. They lay amidst a
clutter of dishes, glasses, inkwells mostly empty, and a roll of clean
parchment on the only large table she owned. The high summer sun was bright as
its warmth filtered through the thin curtains set before the windows.

Francie had
lived alone in one of Podrar’s newer lodging houses for some twenty-odd months.
She held no affection for the building, and wished such large and impersonal
monstrosities had kept to Yangerton where they belonged. Yangerton, Herezoth’s
largest city, needed them to house its vast population, but Francie couldn’t
deny Podrar’s numbers had been growing, and quickly. Renting an apartment in a
lodging house was cheap, was all Francie could afford after paying for one of
her school’s poorer students to study at the Carphead Academy.

Her long,
strawberry blonde hair, which had dulled as she approached thirty years of age,
kept from her face thanks to a thick cloth tie that hit the back of her neck
each time she lifted her head. She studied the various budgets with large, dark
eyes; she had to determine which proposal to support, and thought the one that
cut funds from groundskeeping was probably the best. It used the extra coin to
pay teachers a larger salary, which Francie liked. The increase wasn’t as much
as they deserved, but it was something, and would show the crown and council
did not take their work for granted.

Francie
certainly didn’t. She knew how important the Academy was. Many of its students
had magic, which wasn’t an easy talent for a child in Herezoth to possess.
Francie would know; the sense of touch had always been a problem for her. She
was far too sensitive to it. Upon touching an object, any object, she routinely
felt overwhelmed by the emotions of the last person to have done the same. She
felt what they had felt. Their anger, fear, confidence, or insecurity might
well have been her own. Francie loathed the power she could not escape, but it
was her qualification for the Magic Council. The king had only appointed
empowered individuals, due to the nature of the work and the council’s aim to give
a repressed sector of society a voice in his court.

The school
needed more scholarships, that was the real trouble. Luckily, the Magic Council
was finding donors: well-to-do merchants from Yangerton, or owners of the
flourishing pulp mills north of Podrar. Francie was meeting with a banker in
two days; she hoped he might agree to fund a student’s education. People were
finally acknowledging the value of educating students with magic powers
alongside classmates who had no more magic than a wooden beam, after years of….

Francie
jerked her head toward the door. She thought she’d heard something. More
precisely, she’d heard some
one
, a
footstep on the wooden floor before the edge of her tattered green rug. She
could see no one, though, and her door hadn’t budged.

“Vane?” she
called. Her sorcerer coworker. Only sorcerers could turn invisible. She wasn’t
expecting him, and he’d never called on her unannounced, let alone transported
himself in. Was somebody with her? Francie tensed for one dreadful, prolonged moment.

Utter
silence. She must be imagining things. She had hardly slept last night, hardly
ever slept as much as her body told her she should. There was so much work to
do….

Francie
would never know whether the force that struck her hard across the face, like a
fist, was actually an invisible, clenched hand or the result of a whispered
spell she hadn’t heard. It knocked her sideways, off her chair. When a similar
punch slammed into her stomach, pushing the air from her lungs, she banged the
back of her head. The worn rug between her and the floor provided little
padding. Her mind would have been racing, in a panic, but thinking hurt too
much. She groaned, her pounding heart making her chest throb. This wasn’t
Vane….

He had
auburn hair like Vane, though. And was definitely a sorcerer. He made himself
visible with a word that sounded like nonsense to Francie; she studied him as
she scooted away, toward her second-hand sofa and the open bedroom. He towered
before her, between her and the front door. He was bearded, and one of the
tallest men Francie had ever seen. His nose was pointed, majestic, and to judge
by his unlined face, he was not much older than she was. The clothing he
wore—a cotton shirt and breeches—was worn, artisanal, and
unremarkable. Francie had never set eyes on this man in her life, but he glared
at her with enough hatred in his face that they could have been lifelong
enemies.

Through the
tremors of fear that shook her, and then of pain as he kicked her in the side,
Francie couldn’t reason a motive for this attack. The man was a sorcerer. The
king had created the Magic Council to serve the needs of people like him. Why
would he assault a councilor?

Francie
couldn’t keep pace with her swift, shallow breaths, each riddled with aches.
“Please,” she gasped, “Why are you…? What do you…?”

He wouldn’t
tell her what he wanted. His response was another kick, one with enough
momentum to turn her to her stomach. Francie reached a hand to her head; she
felt a knot and the sticky wetness of blood before he ripped away the cloth
that bound her hair, flipped her back over, and gagged her. He held her down
with a knee on her gut and made sure she saw him clutching the fabric for a
full thirty seconds before he forced it in her mouth. She knew better than to
scream, to alert others. He could slay any neighbors who tried to help her with
a simple incantation as they opened the door, assuming they progressed that
far. Francie had the entrance bolted.

The gagging
was when she realized what she was facing. She might not know this man, but he
knew her. He could easily have silenced her with a spell. Most any sorcerer
would have; that would have been faster than a physical gag, and less risky.
This man, though, bore a personal grudge against her, whoever he was. She knew
by his vile, triumphant smirk what his intention was in using that cloth to
subdue her. He would torment her with her own magic.

With the gag
pressing against her swelling face, Francie felt the purity of this man’s
hatred like a toxin in her blood. His jealousy numbed her fingers. She hurt too
completely to wonder what he might envy about her. Her place on the council?
All she knew for certain was the extent of her peril. With those emotions
raging he would want to cut her down, to show her she was nothing and meant
nothing, her and her piddling magic that was more of a liability than an asset.

The numbness
in Francie’s hand spread up her arm. Her gut convulsed, and the sorcerer,
whoever he was, removed her gag so she wouldn’t choke on the contents of her stomach
but instead spew them across the rug. The saving gesture was no assurance he
would not kill her; he just wanted his way with her first.

When she
finally stopped heaving, the man spoke a second incantation. Francie was no
sorceress; she had little knowledge of spells, no concept of his magic’s
intent, and she cried out in a panic despite her previous determination not to.

No
sound issued from her. When gagging failed, he’d resorted to a muting spell to
keep her quiet. Now he slammed her head against the floor as she struggled in
desperation, which worsened her previous injury and almost knocked her
unconscious. She resisted no further after that. She had no strength to. He
bound her hands behind her back with the cloth he’d removed from her mouth, and
a prideful gloating now, in combination with the previous emotions, made her
feel feverish as he fell upon her.