The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (16 page)

They
talk like they’re from Traigland. I’ve been here so long I don’t notice the
sounds anymore, but they speak like Traiglanders. They
are
Traiglanders.

“Who’s the girl?” Kora asked. “With the
ringlets?”

“Ursa’s sister.”

“Ursa the kidnapper?”

“Think of them like Zalski and Laskenay. It’s
that kind of relationship.” Kora nodded her understanding, and Zacry told her,
“I have to go. I need to see Joslyn before heading back to Podrar. Can you keep
Melly? Rexson said she’s fond of mashed berries, and also yams and gruel, thick
gruel. He directed she’s to take cow’s milk. She’s grown accustomed. With
everything that’s happened, Gracia’s not been able….”

“That’s not uncommon, you know. Cow’s milk is no
problem.”

“The boys and August can sleep at my house. So,
how’s
Joslyn? And Viola?”

“They’re just fine, Zac. Mother’s with them now.
She brought my kids with her. They wanted to go for a walk.”

Zacry kissed his sister on the cheek. He would
have hugged her, but she had Melly on her hip. He was about to transport, and
she knew it, because she called out, “Wait!”

“What is it?”

“How’s the king? How’s he coping?”

“As well as can be expected. His kids are safe
now. That’s his main concern, but the whole situation’s strained his marriage.”

“He told you that?”

“It’s obvious, though he hasn’t been direct. The
queen’s said nothing about it. She’s too refined, and too proud to boot, but
she didn’t want to send the children off. You could see it in her face.”

“She didn’t want them sent to me, is what you
mean. My history with her husband.”

Zacry coughed unconvincingly. “Gracia’s angry as
hell,” he explained. “Not at you or Rexson, at the Enchanted Fist. Rexson
himself’s beyond livid. I tell you, I wouldn’t want to be Dorane right now.”

“Keep an eye on the king,” Kora pleaded. “Don’t
let him do something he’ll regret. I’d never say it to his face, but he’s more
like his brother than he’d care to admit. He always has been. And I told you
what Menikas did, how he ended up.”

Menikas had been Rexson’s brother’s alias. After
years of the strain of leading the resistance, and after an extended argument
with Kora, he’d walked out on the Crimson League, taking three men with him he
eventually led to death.

“I’ll keep Rexson under control. Maybe you’re
right, Kora. What he did to Vane….”

“Vane?” Kora’s eyes grew two sizes. “What’d he
do to Vane?”

Zacry grabbed his elbow. “He just spooked him a
little. For his own good.”

“Zacry, what happened?”

The sorcerer looked at Kora with apology in his
eyes. “It’s not important, and I don’t have time for the story. I swear, it’s
nothing. I’ll be careful to watch the king, though. I really need to go, but
I’ll be back, and soon: I hope within the week.”

“Zac,” Kora began, but too late; her feeble
protest was lost in the strong, clear tones of the incantation Zacry used to
transport to his house. He vanished, and his sister, with Rexson’s young
daughter cooing on her hip, spun the teacup so hard that she lost her grip and
sent it flying off the table. It shattered on the floor. Melly stopped her
chatter, looking up with round blue eyes wide open.

Kora grabbed a broom from the corner, but soon thought
better of it and laid the handle back against the wall. She shut her eyes, as
though summoning her strength, and then gazed resolutely at the ceramic shards
spread across her kitchen. She enunciated a phrase that made Melly turn her
head with interest. Had the child been older, she would have inferred that the
strange sounds Kora made were some kind of cleaning or vanishing spell, because
once the woman spoke, the cup’s remains no longer littered the room.

* * *

Melinda stayed at Kora’s house that night, but
Kora had no room for August or Rexson’s sons, so she transported them to
Zacry’s when her husband returned home. August felt self-conscious imposing on
the wife of a man she barely knew. She tried to be grateful she was safe, to
appreciate Joslyn’s kindness, but August’s throat closed up a bit each time she
tried to speak to her hostess. Joslyn held her in awe.

Zacry’s wife was stunning, the most beautiful
woman August had ever seen. No one in Herezoth had such gorgeous dark skin,
such haunting black eyes. Once the boys went to sleep, tucked in with thick
blankets on Joslyn’s bed—they all fit easily, and Joslyn could sleep on
the settee in the living room—August offered to help her bake some bread
in preparation for breakfast. As they kneaded dough on the long kitchen
counter, keeping quiet because they had moved Viola’s crib to the living room
and didn’t want to wake her, August whispered, “I’m sorry to intrude on you
this way. I’ll be happy to help keep an eye on the boys while we’re with you. They’re
gems, all three. They won’t cause you any trouble. I appreciate what you’re
doing for them, Joslyn, and for me.”

Joslyn put down a lump of dough and patted
August’s arm, painting her skin with flour. “I’m honored to give them a
makeshift home, and you with them. Don’t you dare apologize for being here.
Zacry told me how you kept them safe, how you’re in danger from your sister.”
Joslyn shook her head and took up her dough. “I can’t imagine that a sibling
could…. I grew up with no family, none at all, and I would so have loved a
sister. I look at Zacry and his family, and sometimes it makes my heart ache, I
long so badly for what he has. To think this woman could be so ignorant of what
a blessing….”

“Ursa’s focused on other things, I guess,” said
August. “She’s always been more political than me. Well, as long as I’ve known
her she has, which isn’t all that long. Three years, I think. We never met
before then, and she…. It’s not that she didn’t care for me. I always had nice
dresses and proper coats, and she’d take me once a week to the local tavern for
a meal. Now that I think of it, though, I’m not sure how much all that was for
me, and how much it was for her reputation. We always made it to the tavern at
the busiest part of evening, right after sunset. Sometimes we had to take a
table on the porch, because there wasn’t room inside. I was never sure why we
kept going back. It was awkward having any conversation with Ursa, anywhere,
and we’d have to shout to make ourselves heard at the tavern.

“She wanted people to see how she gave me the
best of everything. She has plenty of money, Ursa does. As for having some kind
of sisterly bond…. We just didn’t have much in common. Not anything, really. We
both like animals, but for different reasons. They’re toys for her. Her magic
lets her control them. She’s using me the same way, as a pawn to get what she
wants from the king, because her politics, that’s what matters to her.”

Joslyn pursed her lips. “Enough for her to
kidnap, apparently.”

“Oh, I’m not defending her! But all the same,
I’m glad I was able to meet the boys.” August paused, then said, “I should have
done more for them, but I was scared. Ursa’s bear stood guard outside, and to
make it run away I’d have had to kill my sister, or convince her somehow to let
it go. I thought about attacking her, I did, but I just didn’t know....

“Ursa locked her door at night and kept the key,
the mansion’s master key. I was sure she had a spare hidden someplace, so when
the boys arrived, I prayed it wasn’t in her room with the other and started
snooping around. After two weeks I found it in the kitchen, tied to the stove’s
back leg. That night, I actually went to Ursa’s door with a knife. I stood
there fifteen minutes debating whether to go in. I knew if I frightened her enough
she’d release the bear, but Dorane was staying with us, and he’s a sorcerer,
the same as Zacry. I could never have held my own against him, and I didn’t
want to give him any cause to, to
teach
the boys a lesson
, as he’d say.”

August’s voice fell away, and an awkward silence
ensued. Joslyn was unsure how to respond, but she understood the girl needed to
get the crime she had almost committed off her chest. Finally, Zacry’s wife
decided the best thing to do was to emphasize that in the end, August had not
threatened or assaulted anyone.

“You were right not to put yourself or the boys
in danger. Right to wait for the king to act.”

“I’m so glad he called Zacry and Val…. Vane,
that is. The rescue mission would have failed without either one of them. Have
you known Vane long? When did you meet him?”

“When he was thirteen or fourteen and the king
brought him here.”

“The king? On a ship?” August shivered as she
began forming small loaves with her dough. “I can’t imagine a month at sea. I
hate the sea. Boats make me sick, and when I think of all those monstrous
fish…. I never could stand live fish. Never could watch Ursa’s cook scale a
dead one either. Sometimes Ursa would scale them herself. She used to do that
as a kid, she’d say.”

“I always longed to travel,” said Joslyn, all
too glad to continue a new topic. “Always wanted to see something more than
Traigland. The idea of a great ship was so appealing to me as a girl, so
romantic in its way. I used to imagine I had long lost relatives in Herezoth,
just waiting for me to discover them. Used to picture the boat pulling up to a
grand port, and there they’d be when we disembarked in the salty air…. That was
nonsense, of course. My ancestry is clearly Traiglandian. Anyone can tell that
with one glance at me. But that connection I felt with Herezoth, it never truly
went away. It made me feel comfortable around Zacry from the first, as though
somehow I’d always known I belonged with him. That must sound foolish.”

“Not at all,” said August.

“I’d still like to see Herezoth’s great cities
someday. I’d like my daughter to know her heritage. We wouldn’t have to take a
boat, of course, not with Zacry’s magic. I might press him to sail there
anyway, if I can save enough for the passage. I started putting away last year,
a coin at a time.”

Just then, Viola began to wail in the next room.
“I can finish in here,” August offered.

“She‘ll wake the boys,” Joslyn worried,
and rushed off. She took Viola outside, for the night was mild, with many stars
and a light breeze heading out to sea. The ocean was only a mile away, and a
hint of salt and brine was just detectable in the air. Viola stopped screaming,
began only to whimper; she had nursed a mere hour before, and was not hungry.
As Joslyn swung her daughter from side to side, she wondered whether Herezoth’s
shore smelled the same as Triflag’s, whether its air also stung the nostrils,
and whether, arriving by ship, she would have grown so acclimated to Herezoth’s
sea clime before reaching port she would even have noticed its scent.

Zacry was in Herezoth right now. It had
been glorious to see him that afternoon, to hear his steady, firm tread coming
up the walk, and agony when he told her he would have to leave again, that the
children were safe but the criminals on the loose. Joslyn couldn’t resent him
returning to aid the king; Rexson’s sons belonged in Traigland no more than
Zacry did, and someone
had to rein in
the madness that threatened them, so they could return home. If only Joslyn
could be certain Zacry would return! What would she do without him? How would
she raise Viola on her own? She hardly knew a thing about mothering, had no
example from her own childhood to rely upon, just the memory of the vast,
whitewashed dormitory she had shared with sixteen fellow orphans. The room was
comfortable and warm, but spiritless, lacking personal touches. The children
had an hour to draw each day, between sums and reading lessons, but no one hung
their pictures for them. The beds were all identical: plain wooden boxes with
slits down the top edges, where wooden panels could slide in to prevent young
children rolling to the floor. Joslyn’s only heirloom was a faded blanket, now
threadbare, in which whoever had left her at the orphanage as an infant had
wrapped her against the wind. Viola would rip the swath of fabric through any
night now, but Joslyn covered her sleeping daughter with the blanket every
evening. That blanket was the only thing Joslyn had to give her. Beyond that,
she had no idea how to be a mother.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The League Reunited

It was hours past midnight when Bendelof
returned, exhausted, to the room she let in her workplace, one of Yangerton’s
cheaper inns. Her head was as stuffed with thoughts of Gratton and the king as
the oversized peppers her boss was known for cramming with the previous day’s
bread.

Rexson had ordered his children off mere hours
before, and the need for such measures had thrown him in a mental fog to cloud
everyone’s vision. Bennie had wanted to speak with the king, to restore his
ability to think without emotion, but she’d refrained. She felt like she hardly
knew him. He had sent her no message in fourteen years before a month ago, when
Hayden had appeared in the kitchen where she was just putting up the soup pot
to tell her Lanokas was in trouble. He had a horse for her if she needed one,
but Lanokas, he needed her to meet with one of his guardsmen right away at City
Hall: a more secure location. Hayden admitted later he had come to her on his
own.

With his children gone a second time, what
Lanokas needed was a current confidant, not a past one, so Bennie had touched
Gratton’s shoulder. That was all. She later wondered if she had channeled
Zacry’s magic to pass her thoughts to him, because the guardsman did
intuitively what Bennie would have suggested if she could have gotten him
alone. He railed at the king. Yelled sense back into him. He stopped short of
pulling a dagger on him like Lanokas had done to Vane, but not by much, and
Lanokas was himself again after that, not excessively angry or brooding. Before
Gratton’s outburst, Bennie could have sworn the king was not Lanokas at all,
but was acting like—even looking like—his dead brother. Gratton had
brought the king back to normalcy with his rage, before later ruining all the
royal’s progress like a....

Like some word Gretta Yastly would have had no
problem coming up with. Bennie kicked off her sandals and lowered herself to
her bed, to stretch her back, because she didn’t own a chair. She had no space
for one. That bed (missing a leg and propped on a log to keep it steady), a
candlestick, and a battered wardrobe were the only furniture in the room, which
was small enough that it could have served as an immense storage closet. The
space served Bennie well enough; she was never there but to sleep. She spent
her days running errands for the inn, visiting friends, or reading at the
library. Nights she worked in the kitchen.

I’ll
be safe here for the moment. They won’t risk angering Rexson by attacking me,
not yet. They’re biding their time, hoping he might cave and announce a Magic
Council.
They
won’t come after me until the week they gave him runs out and they expose him
in desperation. I’ll have to leave then, but for now….

I
can’t let Gratton come here. He wouldn’t understand why I live in this place.
We sure saw eye to eye about Lanokas today, though. I’d never have thought
Lanokas would take his kids’ leaving so hard. I’m sure he’s frustrated as
anything he had to send them away, but he’s got to know they’re safe with….

“KORA!”

Bennie tumbled off the bed as Kora materialized
before her. The sorceress, with a nervous glance at the door, cast a sound
barrier before yanking Bennie up by the elbow. “Quiet!” she hissed. “I’m glad
to see you, but for all the Giver…!”

“What are you doing here? How…?”

“I transported. Zac told me the crew’d be in
Yangerton, and I knew you lived here. I had your address, anyway, so I waited
outside, hoping you’d come back.”

“But Rexson’s children.
Your
children….”

“They’re with Parker and my mother.”

“What if Dorane…?”

“No one will find them, Bennie. How would Dorane
get to Traigland? It would take weeks. He’s never been there, so he can’t
transport.”

“You don’t know that. Man alive! What if someone
sees you? You’ve been banished. Go back,
please
go back! We’ve got this under control.”

“You realize you can’t lie, don’t you?”

“What does Parker think of this? He does
know you’re here?”

“Of course he knows. You think I’d just run off?
Bendelof Esper, you’re the most exasperating….”

And Kora threw her arms around her friend,
failing miserably not to think about her farewells with her family.

She had left at two in the morning. Rexson’s
boys and August were at Zacry’s, while Kora’s children and Melinda had been in
bed for the past six hours. Kora herself paced an uneven path through the toy-strewn
parlor, where her mother sat in horror, her husband impassive.

Ilana Porteg was a tall, stout matron, though
not to a degree to cause comment. She had put on her cotton nightdress, and her
short, shockingly gray hair was brushed for bed. Her full face, still youthful,
looked pale and frightened. “You lied to me. You said Zacry had gone to do
research, for one of his essays.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“All this time he’s been playing the hero. And
that boy! Kora, you sent that boy with him?”

Parker said, “No ma’am, she didn’t. Vane showed
up here as fiery as one of the pokers in the smithy. He demanded to tag along,
right demanded it. Kora tried to talk him out of it.”

“So he’s still in Herezoth. Still. And Zacry’s
gone back to track down magicked criminals.” Ilana ran a hand down her face.
“He can’t do this alone.”

“That’s why I’m going after him,” said Kora. Ilana’s
complexion turned from slate to crimson.

“Don’t joke like that,” she said.

Parker frowned. He looked his wife in the eyes,
as though he could read her thoughts that way. “She’s not joking,” he
announced.

“Zac needs me. The king needs me, since he has
the sense—and thank God he does—not to let Vane get himself killed.
It’s a matter of numbers: we have one sorcerer to their two. I’d have to work
in the shadows, but I, I can surely do something. I’ll be invisible, so if the
enemy suspects I’m there, they’ll think I’m Vane. That’s the logical
assumption. They’ve seen Vane cast spells, when he rescued the princes. They
know the king has two sorcerers.”

“Don’t justify this,” said Parker. “This isn’t
about Zacry, and it’s not about the king. You’ve been itching for years to go
back, been waiting for an excuse. Any excuse.”

“And yet,” said Kora, “I’ve stayed here. Even
when the king’s letter came. Even when Zac went off to Podrar, I sat here
twiddling my thumbs. But Parker, things are different now. The situation’s shot
to hell.”

“And all it needs to get there is for you to
show up and be recognized.”

“I’m stealthy. And quick. Did I survive the
Crimson League or not?”

“Thanks to the League, you know things happen
that stealth can’t plan for. Things no one can plan for.”

“Which is why I know the king needs my help!
He’d never ask it, not with my life at stake if I’m seen, but he needs me. Zac
does too, though he’s still as self-assured as when he was twelve. So what if
I’m being childish, or nostalgic? If a part of me’s selfish and just wants to
breathe the air in Herezoth again? It doesn’t change the fact that Zac’s life’s
in danger, that Rexson’s reign is close to turmoil. My presence might help set
things straight.”

Parker said, “That’s mighty arrogant, I think.”

“Really? Arrogant? What other sorcerer to even
out the numbers would you send? I’d love to know. I’ll go grovel at their feet,
if that’s what it takes to get them on Rexson’s side.”

“Uncalled for,” said Parker. Kora would not back
down.

“This is about math. Two equals two. Two against
one equals Zac in real trouble. You can add, can’t you? Your six-year-old son
can add.”

“And what would you have me tell my six-year-old
when he wakes up and his mother’s gone the way of a rain puddle on a steamy
summer day?”

That stopped Kora short. She bit her lip, unable
to find her voice, wishing she weren’t having this conversation before her
mother.

“Parker, I don’t want to leave the kids, or
you.” She kissed her husband to prove her point, hoping the act might soothe
her aching chest. It didn’t. His eyes bore into hers. “I don’t want to leave, I
need you to hear me say that.”

Parker returned her kiss. Bless him, he
understood. He didn’t blame her. Relief made her voice shake. With her mother
present she couldn’t say how much she loved him, how he had been a part of
every moment of peace she’d known in the last fifteen years. She told him
instead, “I swear I’m coming back, and in one piece, as soon as I possibly can.
I’m just worried that if I don’t go, Zac might not make it back at all.”

“Put more faith in your brother,” said Parker.
“He knows a fair bit about the world, that boy.”

“About the world, perhaps. He doesn’t know
himself, his limitations.”

Kora’s eyes were threatening to leave a puddle
on the floor. Ilana got up and walked her to the chair at the loom, an arm
around her shoulders. She asked her daughter as she seated her, “You feel you
have to do this?”

Kora swallowed. “The old days,” she said, “they
taught me to trust my gut. My instincts. And my gut right now is all twisted
up, because I’m not supposed to be here. Parker, tell me you understand. Tell
the kids I wasn’t feeling well, and I’ll be back in a few days, when I’m
better. Mother….”

“I can watch the kids, all of them. Rexson’s
too. Joslyn will help, and the August girl, so don’t you worry about that.
Don’t you worry one bit.”

Kora nodded her thanks and turned to Parker. She
reached out for him to take her hand, because she needed reassurance, and he
not only squeezed her fingers, he pointed to her stomach.

“You can’t ignore something gnawing in your gut.
Those things’ll eat right through you. If you have to go, you have to go. I
understand that’s how it is. I love Herezoth as much as you do. I respect what
the king’s done there, and I sure don’t want something to happen to Zac. I
happen to think they’ll all be fine without you, every one of them, but if you
have to go….”

“I’ll be back in a week, at the latest. No
matter what.”

“I know you will,” Parker said.

Bennie asked, “What timeframe did you set
yourself?” The question jolted Kora back to her surroundings, to the tiny room,
to the friend she had not seen in years. The sorceress said a week.

“I can’t believe you came. You’re completely
mad.”

“Enough of that, Bennie. Just get me up to
date.”

“No,” the inn worker protested. “No, I’m not
telling you anything, because you’re moseying back home. Where you’re safe. If
you want to sneak around Yangerton with a death sentence on your head, that’s
your business, but I won’t support it. I won’t help you commit suicide after
you stopped me that night. I’ll tell Zacry you’re here, or Rexson. They’ll make
you go back.”

“Did I tell a soul all those years ago when I
found you on watch with a dagger to your wrists? Bennie, listen to me, their
side has two sorcerers. At least two. Vane’s tucked away in the Palace, where
he should be. He’s too young for this. Don’t you think we
should have two casters?”

“Of course I want even numbers! Hang it all, I
want every just advantage we….”

“Then help me help the king!”

Bennie nodded slowly. Reluctantly. She patted
the mattress to tell Kora to sit beside her, and began, “When Zacry came back
this afternoon, he brought us all to Yangerton. I had a wig, like we used to
wear.”

A blonde wig, with loose curls at the bottom. It
itched something terrible, but Bennie couldn’t scratch her head without
dislodging it. A pair of non-corrective spectacles and a grungy hat with
flowers stuck on the rim completed her disguise. She and Gratton, who was
almost unrecognizable in civilian dress, went to Yangerton’s southernmost
neighborhood, where the Fist’s innocent fourth officer, Crale Bendit, lived in
a cottage. Their job was to go from inn to inn in the area and snoop around, or
ask questions to figure out if Arbora had been there.

The first stop was no place Bendelof or any
self-respecting person would generally set foot. That made it a perfect hideout
for the Fist. The keeper was an ex-con known to gloat about the eight years
he’d served for nearly killing a guest who tried to cheat him out of pay for
three months’ lodging. He had struck the man with a fire iron, and told the
story mainly to warn customers not to try similar shenanigans. To glance at his
clientele, Bennie couldn’t blame him. All kinds of dirty, unsavory types filled
the place: gamblers drunk, rolling dice, with scars across their faces and arms
where they had been sliced with daggers; a group of men wearing tattered,
oversized cloaks and speaking in low voices, no doubt using the noise the
gamblers made as cover to plan something illegal; three beggars, spending the
day’s earnings on a gallon of wine that seemed to disappear before Bendelof’s
eyes; two prostitutes, trying to convince the beggars to take them home instead
of buying more drink. Gratton hollered for a beer and kept Bennie close.