The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (22 page)

*
* *

When
the guards that Zacry led back to Crale’s cabin carted off Dorane and Ursa,
along with Arbora as their accomplice and protector, the king gave strict
orders not to allow the captives to speak a word, and Kora transported back to
Bennie’s room from the kitchen now almost unrecognizable as such. After all
that had occurred, she still felt she had done right to risk her own well-being
over Vane’s, as young as he was and as much as she owed to his mother. Even so,
the strain of the day had been more than she cared to admit. The shock of her
exposure, the uncertainty of whether Arbora would keep her secret, the verbal
and magical duels, the smoke in her lungs and fatigue in her muscles, the old
man’s death, Rexson’s cruel treatment of Dorane: all these things combined to
make her feel queasy. She was glad to find Bennie still away, and let her invisible
body collapse on the bed, where, as in the days of the Crimson League, she
managed to sleep.

The
shriek of the door’s unoiled hinges woke Kora sometime later. She rose to a
sitting position with a pounding chest and a lump in her throat, but the newcomer
was only Bennie, with her back turned to close the door behind her; Kora would
recognize that head anywhere. The inn worker jumped as Kora evoked a sound
barrier.

“I
thought you’d gone back to Traigland by now.”

“
Desfazair,
” responded Kora, and appeared
where she sat on the bed. She pulled her legs in to make room for Bendelof. “You
met up with the others, then?”

“With
Zac,” Bennie clarified. “Just Zac, and he told me everything. He said they saw
you. Kora, you need to go home.”

“I
know I do. And I will, though there’s no guarantee I won’t be hounded even
there, if any of that trio opens their mouth. It’s fine. It’s fine, it is.
Rexson won’t let them speak, and even if they do, I knew what I was risking and
I’d risk it again, so I have no regrets. A part of me, though…. Bennie, I’d
really like to stay.”

“That’s
no surprise, Kora. This is Herezoth. Your home.”

“But
it isn’t, not any longer. It never can be again, not even for my kids, and I,
I’m glad to know that for certain, as painful as it is. If that’s how things
have to be, it’s better that I know.”

“What
do you mean?”

“I’ve
been idealistic about my children. I’ve wanted them to know this place, and
I’ve dreaded the day they’d be old enough to come here and leave me behind.
They’ll still leave, of course. They’ll have their own dreams to chase, but
they’ll never be welcome here. Forget welcome, they wouldn’t be remotely safe.
Bennie, do people really say the king’s their father?”

Kora
expected Bennie to blush, but she blanched instead. “People talk about the
idea,” she admitted. “Some actually believe it. Me, I know the both of you. I
know there’s no way you’d hurt Parker like that, or Rexson Gracia, but I can’t
say a thing about it, can I? I can’t admit my past. Who knows who might
overhear?”

“Of
course you can’t,” said Kora. “I’m not blaming you, I’m not. I just wondered if
people talked like that.”

“They
do,” said Bennie, and the sorceress shook her head. “I’m really sorry, Kora.
You don’t deserve that, and those people…. If they had the smallest idea of
what they’re depriving their nation by rejecting you and yours, well, they
would kick themselves.”

Kora
smiled, a sincere smile, and put a hand on Bennie’s arm to quiet her. “Thank
you,” she said. “Truly.”

“I
suppose you should go back now.”

“In
a bit.”

“I
wish I could tell you to drop in again. I wish you could. Well, I know you
can
, since there’s nothing stopping you,
but listen: my selfish wish to catch up isn’t worth what could happen to you
here. Especially after today.”

“Don’t
worry, Bennie. As much as I’d love to visit, I’m not fond of the thought of a
noose.”

Bennie
shivered. “Do you think the kidnappers will hang?”

“I’m
not sure. There’s a chance Ursa and Dorane will, at least, and I’m not anxious
to join them. But, well, I’ve got an idea.” Kora’s voice filled with an
enthusiasm Bennie hadn’t heard there all day. “Maybe, from time to time, I
could send Zac here for you, and you could visit me. To transport that
distance, it takes a toll, so I swear I’d never grudge it if you’d rather just keep
writing, but….”

Bennie
said, “Writing? Over the chance to talk? To meet your kids? Are you kidding?”

“I’ll
send Zac then.”

“I
could get Hayden to come too. I’m sure he’d he love to see you, he….” Bennie
paused. “He’s downstairs, you know. Eating. He wanted to support the inn. I
could fetch him.”

“How
would you explain bringing a man back here?”

“Man
alive, I hadn’t thought of that! Can I bring you food back, at least?”

“I’ll
eat in Traigland, at some inn or other. I’m exhausted already, and after I
transport…. I can’t go home today. I’ll do that tomorrow, but I will leave
Herezoth, I promise. And I’d love to see Hayden. I’d love for his last memory
of me to be something else than a swollen neck and bloodshot, teary eyes back
when I was eighteen, but the fact is, too many people have already seen me. It
doesn’t make sense to leave more proof of my visit, not even with someone I
trust as much as him. I do
trust him,
just as much as you….”

“I
know,” Bennie assured her. “Hayden took part in the raid on Ursa’s mansion.
What if the Fist comes after him? Their leadership’s arrest could provoke them.
Now, I don’t think that’ll happen. We’ve no reason to think that at all, but
you never know. We never thought Zalski would find our headquarters, did we?”

“Don’t
mention that,” said Kora. “Goodbyes should be positive. Look, I won’t wait too
long to send Zac: a couple weeks, no more. My mother still makes the best
cherry tarts you’ve ever tasted. I know you liked those before you left
Traigland, so I’ll have her make some. Parker loves them too, and Kansten,
they’re her favorite.”

Bennie
smiled. “I like your daughter already. She has good taste. Now, you on the
other hand….”

“I
still prefer the blueberry.”

“Inexcusable.
Just inexcusable.” She wrapped Kora in a hug and sniffled. “Monstrous, really.”

The
sorceress pulled back. “Don’t you cry. You’ll set me off too. I’ll be seeing
you, all right? In two short weeks.”

“Zacry
better be here.”

“He
will,” Kora promised, and hugged Bennie again.

*
* *

That
afternoon, Dorane, Ursa, and Arbora found themselves the only occupants of one
of the holding cells in the ancient palace used for centuries now as the
Yangerton prison. The room was large enough to fit three comfortably, but
unfurnished, windowless, and dark, lit only by a candle on the wall. The walls,
floor, and ceiling were all of heavy stone, which muffled the sound of voices
from adjacent cells but not the footsteps of the armed guard who paced outside
the grated door, the guard placed to ensure the prisoners complied with the
order not to speak. None of the inmates, though, felt any temptation to talk.
Arbora, for one, felt too nauseated. The image of Crale crumbling to dust kept
replaying in her mind, and she thought she would vomit if she opened her mouth.

Ursa
was wishing she could be alone. She had never been good at interpreting her
emotions, but she was fairly sure, after the king beat Dorane, that she was in
love with the sorcerer. That would explain why he frustrated her so easily, why
she always felt on edge around him, why she bought those books she had no
desire to read, and most of all, why she had let him talk her into the
kidnapping scheme when she had known all along his was a horrible idea. At any
rate, Dorane’s presence was disturbing when she was trying to figure out her
sentiments. All she knew was she’d be damned if they hanged him. Maybe she
could take responsibility, claim she had hatched the plot. But would Dorane let
her do that? If she claimed it was for his kid, he just might. Anyway, at least
for the moment, Ursa didn’t care what happened to her. She had been horrified
beyond anything at the thought of arrest, which was why she had refused to turn
herself in; now she wished she
had
surrendered.
If she had known she would end up in jail regardless, why not?

Perhaps
August would come see her. That would be nice…. The idea was brighter to Ursa
than the candle, and she let herself bask in its glow. Perhaps she did care
after all about her fate. Yes, she did care; she did not want to die. She
wanted to see her sister, in particular. She definitely wanted to live, though
if she could spare Dorane somehow….

Dorane huddled in the corner, weak and
aching, his spirit paining him more than his body. His powers were gone: his
one gift, his validation, his entire structure of self-worth. He too wished to
be alone, with the belt the guards had removed from him, so he could kill
himself and be done with it. As things were, with Ursa and Arbora in the room
there had been no need to take his belt. The two would have stopped him before
he strangled himself, and even if they couldn’t, he would never have subjected
them to that. Not unless doing so would somehow grant him a Sorcerer’s Council.

Why didn’t Rexson just kill him? What was
he waiting for, after that display at Crale’s cottage? And why—
why?—
had that idiot essayist
intervened when the king would surely have beaten Dorane to death if left to
his own devices? Hatred of Zacry Porteg pulsed through Dorane, setting his
nerves on fire.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sunset

While
the Enchanted Fist waited listlessly for whatever might come to pass, Kora
awaited sunset in her favorite tavern on the Triflag coast, her favorite
because it never seemed so busy that she couldn’t find a seat, or so noisy as
to prevent her gathering her thoughts. White linen curtains, mirrors on the
walls, and wicker furniture gave the place a pleasant, carefree air that Kora
wished might penetrate her heart.

The
sorceress perched on a barstool, watching families, lovers, and groups of
friends come and go while she sipped a pint of beer that had thoroughly chilled
her fingers. A bandana covered her ruby. Like those she and her brother had
stripped of magic mere hours earlier, she was lost in contemplation, and grew
to ignore the frequent swinging of the tavern’s door. She failed to notice
right away when a group of three men walked in, rather nondescript, two dressed
in the standard fashion of Traigland: a simple shirt of cotton, tunic-styled,
with black or tan breeches. Their blond and thinner-haired companion wore a
white worker’s shirt with long, fitted sleeves, one like Parker or any other
smith would own. It was this last man Kora first noticed; he left his companions
by the entrance to approach her.

“Zac
thought we might find you here,” said Rexson. “The four of us should talk.”
Kora marked her brother and Laskenay’s son. “A walk along the coast?”

“All
right,” said Kora. She fingered her half-filled mug, and then offered it to
Rexson. “Finish it,” she said. “I don’t want it, and it’ll do you good. If I
know you at all, you haven’t touched ale since that time we drank it in
Fontferry.”

“That
time you threw it in my face,” he corrected with a smile. Kora forced herself
to follow suit. She’d pretended he wanted to marry her when she’d sloshed him
with ale, to create a diversion to save Hayden from some thug, and the memory
was painful when she thought about the rumors of her children’s parentage. The
king took one sip to taste the brew, then downed what remained. “Come on,” he
said, and the foursome left the tavern, walking the two blocks of general
stores, restaurants, and public stables until they reached the shore. It was
sandy, with few shells, and strewn with driftwood.

Enough
people were about that no one marked the new arrivals. And yet, beachgoers were
sparse enough that Kora’s group could speak without being overheard. The sun
was beginning to sink to the horizon, and the sorceress stared out to sea to
watch it descend.

“We
found the spy,” Zacry told his sister. “Well, Vane did, I should say. While we
were in Yangerton. A kitchen hand.”

Kora
nodded. That meant Gratton was in the clear and would not pursue her arrest,
unless he were in cahoots with this man from the kitchens, which seemed
unlikely. She turned to the king and blustered, “What are you doing here? Don’t
you have other things to tend to?”

“What
in God’s name were you doing in Herezoth?” he replied. “That’s why I’m here, to
figure out how to handle this mess. All three of those clowns saw you.”

“Zacry
invited him here,” Vane said. “We figured that was better than him visiting
Treel…. Dorane’s spy.”

Kora recalled what Rexson had done to
Dorane, and approved of Zacry’s logic. She told the king, “Don’t you worry
about me. That’s not your concern. I went back to Herezoth of my own volition,
and I’ll accept what consequences come of it. Whatever happens, you’re not to
blame.”

“That’s easy enough to say. I’ll be
damned if I let the public force me into hanging you when you came back on my
account.”

“I remind you, someone would have to
arrest and extradite me first. I have ways of making that difficult. So forget
me. Just forget it. You have the kidnappers in prison, don’t you? You each have
leverage, right? So compromise. Work out some kind of deal where you scratch
each other’s backs. No trial, that would be a madhouse.”

“I can and will put them on trial,” the
king insisted.

Zacry said, “And risk what they could
reveal? With the numbers of people who’d be watching the proceedings? What
charges would you draw? What motive would you propose they had? You can’t admit
the truth. If they let out the magicked have organized to seek political power
in the form of a council, you’d have mass hysteria on your hands.”

The king reminded him, “I have an army to
handle mass hysteria. Those pigs deserve a trial. They deserve the shame, need
to hear a death sentence levied.”

Zacry said, “I’m not suggesting you let
them off. But don’t put them on trial. There’s too much to lose there. You do
realize Kora and I just obliterated their magic? Obliterated it. They’ll resent
that, and they could easily destroy you with themselves, out of spite. Even
Dorane’s son will matter nothing to him now, not compared to his sense of violation.
He’d love to tear you down. Why would you give him that platform? A public
trial, it’s the perfect opportunity for them. Look, did we or did we not just
hunt these people down to
prevent
them
making public you’re telekinetic? As much as you’d hate to, give them their
lives. They’ll be less grudging then, and you need them not to grudge you. Give
them their blasted council if they insist, and make the council public. You can
present a case for it as your idea. That’s preferable to what would happen if
they leaked news of it at trial. After Zalski, if people knew a sorcerer meant
to blackmail you, or if you tried to keep this council secret and failed…. I
realize I’m not your adviser. But you gave me advice once, good advice, and as
a friend I can say I don’t wish you the turmoil a trial could cause. I don’t
know I could wish it on Zalski himself.”

“Zacry, they deserve to hang. After
official sentencing. I can’t just….”

Kora said, “You
can’t?
You can’t do what? Are you king or aren’t you? You can do
what you like. You can stab them in the gut and leave them to bleed out. In
secret. That would solve the problem, though I wouldn’t recommend it if you
want to sleep again.”

“Oh, I could sleep,” Rexson told her.
“I’d sleep as soundly as my infant daughter.”

Kora said, “For a while you might. For a
year or so, but we both know your conscience would catch up to you. You do
remember that guard from my first raid, don’t you? The one Argint told me had
all those kids? How’d you deal with killing him when all was said and done?”

“What’s that?” said Vane. He looked to
Kora, intrigued. He had never heard her mention the Crimson League so directly,
except when he asked her questions about Laskenay, but no one replied to his
question. Vane longed for Kora to say more. His morbid curiosity got the best
of him, but she returned to the topic at hand.

“Yes, you could kill them without a
trial. No repercussions. That has to be tempting, after what they did to your
children. I’m a parent myself, and if someone hurt my kids, I…. But that’s not
the point. The fact remains, killing these people is very much the Zalski move,
and you know it. You won’t go down that road. As much as you’d like to and as
much as you bluster, we all know you won’t, you included, so if we take
slaughter off the table…. You could try them, like you say. You could be
vindictive enough to sacrifice not only yourself but Gracia too, and the future
of your children, just to see the Fist shamed. You know that’s ridiculous. So
your option is to compromise. It’s either that, or have your magic and their
plot exposed in a courtroom. Do you really have a
choice?”

Rexson did not, Vane realized. He would
have to create a Magic Council to keep the Fist quiet, and the council would
have to be public. Vane knew firsthand what people thought of the magicked in
Herezoth. If the king formed that council in secret and somehow word got out,
well, “mass hysteria,” as Zacry named it, would not be strong enough a term to
describe the backlash. The Enchanted Fist had won an important battle, the
battle they most cared about, despite losing the war; the thought left a bitter
taste in Vane’s mouth, and not only because the entire situation was unjust. He
could see its implications for his future. The words of his mother’s diary
crashed against his skull like the waves upon the beach.

I
do believe, with all my soul, that my son and his father share more than a name
….

Vane took a deep breath, and said,
“Sire….”

“Don’t you call me that. Not you of all
people.”

“Rexson, are you going to found that
council?”

The king’s bitterness was palpable. “It
looks as though I’ll have to, doesn’t it?”

“Then I’m willing to take part, in any
capacity you’d like. There should be at least one person involved who knows
about your power, for your own security, to avoid embarrassing situations.
Plus, to have a nobleman, a duke, will lend the council more legitimacy in the
public eye. Every council until now has boasted two or three nobles, usually
more. Listen, I know who I am. I realize people will talk, my uncle being who
he was. Maybe they’ll realize that if he’d had a forum like this, he wouldn’t
have felt compelled to take the measures he did.”

The king responded, “I’d never ask this
of you. This council changes everything about your situation, whether or not you
take part. Your presence at court will be even more controversial than it
otherwise….”

“I’m still offering my aid, and freely.”

It’s
what my father would expect of me. What my mother would do herself, if she
could.

“Does this mean you’ve made up your mind,
then? About your father’s title?”

“It does.”

Kora slung an arm around Vane. “You don’t
belong here,” she told him. “You truly don’t, though I can’t describe how much
I’ll miss you, how much the kids will miss trekking off to see you. And you,”
she told her brother.

Zacry sent her a startled look. “Me?”

“There’s nothing for you in Traigland,
Zac. We both know that. Joslyn’s always longed to move to Herezoth, and
Lanokas, he needs you there long-term. He just won’t say it. He won’t say it,
so I will.”

Rexson tried to speak, but Zacry would
not let him. He asked his sister, “What about Mother? And you?”

“What about us? Zac, you’re a sorcerer.
We’d still see you. You could drop by for visits at the blink of an eye.”

“I would have to discuss this with Joslyn.”

“I realize that.”

“There’s a lot to consider. There could
be some unrest. My daughter….”

Kora said, “Do you know what Bennie
called you last night? I can’t stop thinking about it. She said you’re what
Zalski could have been, what he was called to be. Well, you can’t be that from
Traigland. You won’t make an impact in Herezoth living here. And you’d love to
go back, I know you would. You thrive on conflict, on challenges. You never
wanted to leave in the first place. You never grudged leaving, and I appreciate
that more than you’ll ever understand, but still, you didn’t want to go. What I
don’t want, more than anything, is for you to grow restless and resentful,
resentful of me
in particular,
sometime down the road because you should have gone back and never did.”

Zacry’s face turned red. He wanted to
tell his sister he could never resent her, tell her he finally knew what she
had sacrificed for him all those years ago during that conference with Zalski,
but he could not. He had sworn not to, and that was no conversation to have
with other people around. He let Kora go on.

“I think Joslyn would go to Podrar. And
Viola is welcome to stay with me as long as she might need to, if you decide
it’s too risky to bring her right away. If you’re willing to leave Traigland in
the first place, leave the safety you have here, because you might not be, and
no one would blame you if that’s the case. You’re a father now. You have a
family to consider.”

“Zacry,” Rexson began, “I don’t expect….
I won’t be offended if you stay here, whatever the cause. I won’t even ask an
explanation. You don’t owe me a thing, and I can get on without you, though I
wouldn’t reject what assistance you could give if you did return to Herezoth.”

Zacry gave the king a brotherly punch in
the bicep. “If anyone can get this council off the ground, that person’s you.
You don’t need my help, and I won’t let a misplaced sense of obligation sway me
if it turns out going to Herezoth is not in my family’s interest.”

“Good,” said the king. “All right, good. As
long as you’re sincere in that. Listen, could I have a word with Kora?”

“Let’s go get drinks,” Vane suggested,
and he and Zacry headed off, retracing their steps to the tavern. Kora and
Rexson stared out at a glorious sunset, both silent at first. The sky looked
the color of Bendelof’s hair.

The sorceress said, “It’s beautiful,
isn’t it? My favorite thing about Traigland. I’ve always said the sunsets are
the one thing Traigland has that’s better than in Herezoth. When I first came
here, our boat docked this time of day. We got held up by storms at sea that
made it dangerous to approach the harbor earlier. And as frightened as I was,
and as seasick, as unsure as the future seemed, when I looked out at that
display I felt that things would work out somehow.”