The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (7 page)

Bennie
took a seat next to the sorcerer. “She didn’t tell you because she didn’t want
you feeling guilty. You shouldn’t feel guilty. You were just a kid. You
couldn’t have known how those rants of yours would scare her, and you had a
right to rant, if you need me to remind you. Every right in the world.”

The
knots in Zacry’s stomach tightened, nearly making him double over. He had eaten
nothing but an apple and a few bites of egg, and worried he might throw that
up. “By the Giver’s broken lyre,” was all he could say. He shut his eyes. “Holy
Giver, I cannot believe she did that. For me. I’d known she’d done it, but for
me…. God only knows what that man would have done before he did away with her.
She must have been terrified. It was only by a miracle she escaped him, that
any of you did.”

“She
wasn’t terrified,” said Rexson. “Not during the final attack. She knew she’d
done her duty by you, as the elder sibling. As an adult. You’re aware your
sister confided in me in those days. Believe me, then, that you did just as
much for her by going to a safehouse as she ever did for you.”

“Buck
up,” said Bennie. She nudged Zacry in the side. “Listen, kiddo, Kora was always
proud of you, as she should have been. Besides, that’s long over and done with,
thank the Giver.”

So it was, Zacry told himself. Zalski was
old news. They had other enemies now, but Zacry dwelt on the king’s revelations
in a bubble of self-absorption while Bendelof brought the king that glass of
milk she had promised.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Of
Knights and Negotiations

Ursa’s
basement was a less dreary place by day. The high slivers of windows in the
eastern wall allowed some sun to flood the room and heat the floor, so that the
three boys sat on their blankets or overturned crates. While the basement was just
as bare as it had been the night before, only a small part lay in shadow now,
and what did not twinkled and winked as the light caught nooks and ridges in
the stone. Also cheery was the smell of roasted chicken, on which the boys were
lunching. It mingled with the scent of their stewed greens and the rose water
August had used to wash.

August
was seventeen, younger than her sister by nearly eight years, and wore her
blond curls short because at that length they extended nicely when she pulled
at them. Grabbing her hair was her nervous habit, and she took comfort to feel
the lightly hued springs give beneath her hand, stretching as she forced them
down, then jumping back up. Her yellow sundress, lined with lace, seemed a work
of art in the monotone gray that surrounded her, but it was nothing special
really, not compared to the gowns the boys were accustomed to seeing at the
Palace. Still, lace was a luxury in August’s fishing district. Ursa was the
richest inhabitant for tens of miles if one forgot the Count of Carphead, and
she made a point of taking care of her little sister. Her idea of showing what
affection she felt for the girl was to make sure August’s dresses had nice
trim.

Holding
an old, battered book, August sat on a crate in the center of the room. Hune
had squeezed beside her and looked down at the page as she read. His plate,
half-filled yet, lay in his lap. His brothers had gathered at August’s feet,
Neslan still and attentive, Valkin fidgeting with the glasses that kept sliding
down his nose. They had finished eating and had stacked their dishes next to
them. The girl was reading, with great vivacity, a story about a silly knight
and a troll.

“And
lo, the troll gave good Sir Adage a shock that night when he jumped out from
behind a boulder on the lonely road. The knight’s horse spooked, Adage fell to
the ground when the animal reared, and his armor gave a most fantastic clang as
he hit the earth. The troll said, ‘Now shall I kill thee, good sir, because
ever have I hated thy great justice.’

“‘Ah!’
said the knight. ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and thou holdest
nothing in thy hand at all! Nothing, whilst I may depend on my trusty sword,
Lankon! Lankon mayeth not be hawk or eagle, but he claimeth some small valor.’

“‘Aye,’
said the troll, ‘thou wieldest a blade, but I have friends here,’ and as poor
Sir Adage used Lankon to prop himself up, four more trolls jumped out from
behind the boulders on the hillcrest. Adage saw them by the moonlight.

“‘A
faithful friend is like gold,’ said the knight. ‘He who findeth one findeth a
treasure. Thou art rich indeed, I see.’ And as Adage’s brave horse had bolted,
Adage had no choice but to turn and flee from the trolls. Instead of pursuing
him, the beasts rolled on the earth with laughter when he tripped upon his own
two feet and flew sprawling to the thick green grass a second time.”

Hune
was laughing with genuine glee, a great belly laugh that shook him and would
have shaken the crate he sat on, had August’s additional weight not held it
firm. Neslan chuckled and Valkin smiled, although he said, “Adage is always a
coward. He’s a coward when Mother reads about him too. Can we have something
else?”

“I
know Mother reads us these stories,” said Neslan. “That’s why it’s nice to hear
them again. Hush and let August finish.”

August
continued the tale.

“‘What
a shame to lose such a beautiful horse as old Trite,’ thought Sir Adage,
growing angry once he placed a good distance between himself and the trolls.
‘There is nothing to be done, I suppose, except remember that beauty lyeth in
the eye of the beholder, and since not everyone will find Trite as lovely as I
did, the loss is not horribly great. Still, I hope his next owner thinketh him
a graceful thing.’

“But
then, over a near hill, Adage spied old Trite grazing at his ease by the light
of the moon, and he cried out, ‘Scoundrel! What a scoundrel thou art, and how
glad I am to find thee! I am glad those horrid trolls did not catch thee and
eat thee up!’”

Hune
was howling again with laughter and tumbled off the crate. His half-eaten piece
of chicken hit the floor, and his greens landed all over his shirt.
“Scoundrel!” he yelled at the makeshift stool that had held him in place no
better than Trite had held old Adage. That was too much for the others; his
brothers, August, they doubled over with shouts of mirth. Valkin let out such a
guffaw that his glasses fell off his face. Just when everyone was calming down,
Neslan started laughing again with a great snort that set them off once more.

“That’s
enough of that story for today, I think,” said August, when things settled
down. “This is turning dangerous.”

“Do
trolls really exist?” asked Hune, cleaning himself up.

“Of
course they don’t,” said Valkin.

“Maybe
in the mountains,” said Neslan. “But not near home.”

“Good,”
said Hune. “I won’t go to the mountains then.”

“You
don’t want to meet trolls?” said Valkin. “It would be an adventure, to meet a
troll. If there were any.”

“What
would you do?” Neslan asked him.

“I
would fight him, of course. I would slay him like the real knights used to do
and be a grand hero, and everyone would talk about it.”

“You’d
run away faster than Adage,” said Neslan.

“I
would not!”

“You
would.”

“It
doesn’t matter,” said Valkin. “There aren’t any trolls to come across.”

“You
two….” said August. She laid the closed book beside her, and Hune, who by then
had rid his clothing of vegetable matter, climbed on her lap. He said:

“My
favorite part of the story’s when Adage meets the giant, and he tries to run
away from him too, like always, and he slips again and loses his grip on
Lankon, and Lankon goes soaring through the air like a great falcon and cuts
the giant’s head off, which isn’t a bad thing, really, since the giant’s a
great bully to the villagers. And Adage makes up a great yarn about how he
battled the monster, and everyone thinks he’s wonderful, but the plan goes
wrong when the villagers ask him to kill the dragon that’s been stealing all
their gold. So Adage gets scared again and rides away from the town as quickly
as he can.”

“We
can read that part tomorrow,” said August.

“I’m
sick of old Adage,” said Valkin. “I want a story about a real hero, not that
lousy coward.”

“But
Adage is funny,” said Hune.

August
suggested, “How about Sir Brogle and his quest for the beginnings of magic?”

“That’s
a good one,” said Neslan.

“I
don’t have it to read,” August admitted. “But I know it well enough that I can
tell a decent version of it. All right, how does it start?”

“Sir
Brogle was bored,” said Valkin. “Because he’d rid his village of foul beasts.”

August
said, “So he was. He was bored. He had a friend named Mage, who was a great
sorcerer, and when Mage learned that Brogle had nothing at all to do, he said
it would be a great help to all good magicians to discover how magic began,
because none of them knew. A league of evil sorcerers knew, but kept the secret
to themselves. If Brogle wanted, he could go off and search for the answer. A
clue, an artifact of some kind that could set him on the right path, was
rumored to be far off in the Caves of Snowdown, but there were monsters and
evil sorcerers with astounding power to guard it. In fact, Mage would go with
him if he liked, to help….”

* * *

At
the same time that August was reading to the princes, distracting them for a
few precious minutes from their homesickness, Ursa, Dorane, and Arbora were
meeting in one of the mansion’s smaller rooms, which Ursa had converted five
years before into a study of sorts, a miniature library, though she herself was
no great reader. Dorane was the trio’s devourer of words, and most of the books
Ursa owned she bought mainly to loan to him.

One
of the study’s walls held large windows, so that the room had a cheerful air
due to abundant lighting. A sun-faded rug and tapestry gave the space a homey
touch that made it feel more utilized than it was in actuality. The three
occupants had pulled their cushioned chairs to face one another, and looked
sluggish despite the sunlight because they had recently eaten. Dorane tried to
read the titles of some books stacked behind Arbora, but could not because of
her mountain of thick brown hair, which instantly drew anyone’s attention when
they first saw her. Arbora always looked a little shabby, devoting herself to
activities she considered more important than her appearance.

Ursa
was just the opposite. The younger woman had a vain streak, and her dresses
were always pressed, her long rust-colored locks brushed until they shone. Ursa
was well aware her home village held no prestige, and though she felt no shame
for her rustic roots or speech style, she feared others would judge her by
where she had grown up. She turned up her nose at Dorane’s threadbare wardrobe,
and hinted she would gladly supply him with a better, for her own sake, so she
would not have to suffer “lookin’ at the old one,” but Dorane refused to be
anyone’s charity case. That was why Ursa, to be kind, had to lend him books
instead of gifting them. Dorane always returned them in perfect condition. She
suspected he might ask to borrow that one he was staring at.

“Dorane,”
Ursa chastised, “this ain’t no time to be thinkin’ o’ books. Pay attention,
will you? You don’t think the king’ll bite, Bora?”

“Biting
has nothing to do with it. Listen to me, both of you: I know the king. He
hasn’t agreed in six weeks to give you amnesty if you return his children, and
won’t agree to such terms if we haggle for four more years. If either of you
had the foresight to come to me before you started this catastrophe, I would
have warned you of that.” Arbora shook her head. “You,” she accused Dorane, “I
expected more from you. How could you have done this? You’re a father
yourself.”

“Good
grief,” said Ursa. “We didn’t hurt the boys, an’ we knew what we were riskin.’
Someone had to do
somethin
.’ Rexson’s
blocked us at every turn for years now. Damn it, he won’t block us no more! We
magicked deserve better.”

Arbora
lost her patience. “Aren’t Rexson’s sons magicked? Don’t they deserve better
than to rot down in that basement?”

“That’s
the king’s fault, that!” Ursa cried, literally rising to Arbora’s challenge.
“That’s the king’s own fault, an’ I won’t have you layin’ it on me. All he has
to do is agree to what we’re askin,’ an’ he’ll have his boys back, won’t he,
good as new!”

“Our
demands are reasonable,” said Dorane. “We’re not asking for a thing that isn’t
owed us.”

“You
say they’re reasonable. So do I.
Unfortunately, the king views my suggestions in a different light, as I, again,
would have warned you he would, if you’d asked my advice before taking measures
that were so damn drastic! Now compromise is stalling. I’m telling you, it’s
stalling. You’ve held his children captive for a month, and there’s no telling
how much longer….”

Ursa
flashed a smile and retook her seat, smoothing her skirt as she did so. “You
mean
we,
Bora.
We’ve
been holdin’ his kids. You could transport ‘em out any time.
I can’t stop you if you set your mind to doin’ that.”

Dorane’s
voice was full of a quiet strength. “I thought we’d return the boys after a day
or two. I didn’t plan….”

Arbora’s
voice shook with anger. “What you planned doesn’t matter! This is what we’ve
come to. How do we fix this?”

“We
plug on,” said Dorane. “As we’ve been plugging on.”

“We
could wait this out,” Arbora agreed. “Or we could…. Listen, both of you: it may
be time to salvage what we can. The official adviser, the commune, we can let
those dreams flit away, but I’m almost sure I could get the king to agree to a
secret council, secret being key. An honorary and advisory group of magicians.
If he appoints the members, determines its size…. He has power himself beyond
politics, and he does want to reach out to the magic community. He only fears
the backlash. It’s not quite what we wanted, but it’s close enough. That
council, even a covert one, would be a monstrous victory. If Rexson agrees to
that provision, and also to spare your lives, which might take some convincing,
would you turn yourselves in?”

“Prison
for the rest o’ my life?” stormed Ursa. “Are you jokin’? I ain’t servin’ time
for this. I don’t plan to be no martyr just so you can get your council.”

“You
want the council too,” Arbora reminded her. “You want that council. You
kidnapped for it. This may be the only way to get something that resembles it.”

“I
ain’t the martyr type,” Ursa repeated.