The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  The king said, “It’s a chance we have to take.”

  The queen raised an eyebrow. “A chance Vane has to take,” she corrected. “The rest of us, we won’t find ourselves surrounded by….”

  Vane insisted, “I’ll be fine, Gracia.” His desire to prevent her describing what awaited him lent his new voice a false confidence.

  “Rexson,” the queen prodded, “his stone?”

  Vane asked what in the Giver’s name she was referring to, and the king told him, “The Lifestone. Your uncle’s Lifestone. You’re to carry it on you. It’ll keep you alive if Linstrom tries to kill you.”

  Vane had heard about the Lifestone, heard the legends as a child. Supposedly it was an enchanted gem of some kind, which would keep its possessor alive despite all injury and any degree of pain. His tyrant uncle had sought as well as found it, to aid in torture. It currently hid as a ruby affixed to the base of a sculpture in the Palace garden.

  “It’ll keep me alive, you mean, until Linstrom realizes there’s something sustaining my life and steals the thing. The last scenario you need unfolding is that man with that stone.”

  The king’s voice was firm. “Should Linstrom turn treacherous, the Lifestone will permit you to feign death until you transport yourself away. To get aid.”

  “Provided I can transport with the injuries.”

  “Vane Unsten, you left four children at home this morning. You know damn well you’re a son to me, and you’re taking the stone. We’re going to the garden so you can retrieve it.”

  Rexson pulled Vane out his antechamber, at which point the transformed duke twisted himself free but followed. The king was his king. An order was an order. Vane quailed at the thought of the stone, of how his uncle had wanted to use it, but knew that he himself would be taking it to Partsvale.

  The sun had only begun to rise. The sky was a beautiful shade of violet, the weather calm, with not even a breeze. The gardens lay between the Palace and the stables, and Rexson led Vane to the statue in question, one of an ancient, robed sorcerer-lord whom a brass plate named Brenthor. Rubies lined his garment.

  “It’s one of these,” said the king, indicating the bottom and back of the statue. “Can you determine which?”

  “Encanta,” muttered Vane. That was a spell to identify traces of magic on an object, and it made one of the stones glow a vibrant yellow, then fade back to its normal scarlet. A common slicing spell tore the ruby from the statue; Vane brought it into his hand with another incantation.

  The king told him, “I regret you have to do this. Have to go to Linstrom.”

  So did the sorcerer. But that was neither here nor there, not what the king needed to hear from him. “You’re not at fault. I’m doing my part to keep Linstrom’s havoc to a minimum, the same as Gratton. The same as you. I understand that, as does August. I’ll pass myself off as a baker, like my ally—a family trade, since we’re to be cousins—and I’ll be back tonight to inform you of any developments.”

  “The Giver’s fullest blessings,” spoke the king. “And all my prayers, the most heartfelt. Now go, before I decide I can’t permit you.”

  Some minutes later, bag in hand, Vane walked the high street of Partsvale. The area had always been one of his favorites in Herezoth. It lay a fortnight’s journey from the capital, but his magic allowed him to frequent the village as often as he chose, and he regularly went there for quiet, to put aside the obligations that tied him to Podrar and to the court.

  That was not the motive for this visit, and Vane worried, among other things, that the day’s tasks would forever taint his memories of and fondness for Partsvale. At least the scene was as picturesque as ever; to the north, the peaks of one of the highest sections of the Pearl Mountains reared. Behind him, at the foot of the winding cobblestone road, stood the famous Shrine of the Giver with its steeples and towers, its windows as wide as ten men.

  The path’s incline was steep, and Vane found breathing difficult by the time he recognized the bakery amidst the similar-looking shops clustered near it. They were housed in what could have been wooden cabins, most two stories tall. The smell of fresh bread drew Vane’s attention to the building he sought as much as the sign out front, and the pleasant, saliva-inducing scent made him unexpectedly, but gladly, hungry. He had hardly slept and had not eaten in twelve hours.

  Vane knew the high street, but had never patronized the bakery. He had never met his fellow spy, Ryne Howar, and he found himself wishing the man were a previous acquaintance as he quickened his pace and entered Howar’s shop.

  The stoves were in the back, out of sight behind a pair of swinging doors, but loaves of various shapes and sizes were on display in a glass-fronted case against the wall. Two men in flour-stained aprons were attending a small crowd of customers, mostly women in work frocks. Wooden chairs lined a wall, but none was occupied. As Vane watched the bakers move from person to person, he guessed which must be Ryne Howar: the other was no older than twenty, with acne on his nose and chin.

  Howar was a well-built man of forty, perhaps. He was bald, as Gratton had described, with a baritone voice and an impish gleam in his eye to negate the characteristics that would otherwise have made him quite the imposing figure. As he maneuvered through his clientele in Vane’s direction, Howar asked, “What’ll you have today? Got some larger loaves to make a mouth water.”

  Vane feigned annoyance, an annoyance deliberately exaggerated. “Well, that’s just grand. You don’t know me? You send all the way to Podrar for me, and don’t recognize your cousin?” He raised his bag to face level. “This didn’t clue you in?”

  Howar’s mind was sharp. He looked confused for a fraction of a second, and then understanding lit his face. Vane said, “I’m Rickard, you oaf.” Common name. Wouldn’t draw attention or be remembered. “You forget you wrote for me, or what?”

  Howar hugged the stranger before him as though the man were family. As he did so, he transferred flour from his apron to Vane’s shirt and whispered, “Ingleton?”

  “Yes,” Vane whispered back. “Play along.”

  Howar let out a natural-sounding chuckle as he slapped Vane on the spine. “What do you expect? It’s been twelve years.”

  “Thirteen,” Vane pretended to correct him. “If you want to be precise. I met up with a man on the road who lives near here, and he put me up for the night. Didn’t want to trouble him for longer.”

  “As you can see, this isn’t the time of day to catch up. I don’t imagine you’ve eaten this morning?” Vane said he hadn’t, and Howar fetched one of the smaller loaves from the case for him. Handing it to the duke, he said, “Busy at the moment…. Business is booming, as they say.”

  Vane glanced at the crowd surrounding him. “Glad to see it. Very glad.”

  Howar slapped him on the back again. “Come back around two. Things slow down then. We’ll be able to chat. Thirteen years…. There’s much to talk about.”

  “Much,” Vane agreed. He felt surer of himself, with that introduction going as well as it had. He even hoped that one or two of the people in the bustle all around belonged to Evant Linstrom. If so, they might prove viable witnesses of Rickard’s familial relationship with Ryne Howar.

  Vane left his bag at the bakery, and though his mind was distracted, his stomach felt normal enough that he ate most of his loaf mechanically as he sat on a bench off the high road, anticipating his next move. Now that Howar could verify Vane’s cover story if pressed upon, Vane needed to see Evant Linstrom. Best to speak with the man as soon as possible.

  When Vane realized he had eaten enough bread to constitute a decent breakfast, he tossed the remainder of the loaf to some pigeons that had gathered near the stoop of a general store. Then he continued up the cobblestone street in the direction of the cobbler’s workshop. The sun was low yet, the morning mild for summer. Had Vane come to Partsvale on other business, he would have taken the time to appreciate the quaint yet bustling scene and the scent of roasting bacon that enticed passer
sby through an open tavern window. As things were, Vane hurried as he climbed the twisting road, anxious to get the meeting behind him, running prayers for wisdom through his head as he went.

  The cobbler’s shop wasn’t difficult to find, a five minutes’ walk away. Vane hoped Linstrom would be at work, and was relieved when he peered through an uncurtained pane in the wooden wall to see two men seated on stools, deep in conversation as they fixed new soles to boots from a stack piled between them. The first looked close to Vane’s age, around thirty. His height was average and his eyes a piercing gray. He tied his thick black hair at the base of his neck in a style the duke associated with nobility; this sorcerer—this Evant Linstrom—had an ego, then. His most striking feature, to Vane’s eye, was the crooked nose Gratton had mentioned. Someone had broken it in time past.

  The other man was taller and a bit less stocky. He seemed a few years older than his fellow, and fairly bristled with pent-up energy. He had auburn hair, much like Vane’s when Vane was not enchanted, and a bushy beard he clearly took pride in keeping groomed. Though his clothing was patched and not of the quality of Linstrom’s, Vane’s first impression was that of an individual he would be foolish to antagonize.

  Before Vane could reconsider or doubt his plan, he barged through the door. The cobblers fell silent, and Linstrom turned his head to the newcomer, exasperated. “You a pilgrim? We’re finishing old jobs. Don’t open to take new ones for two hours.”

  Vane said, “I’m here on other business. My cousin sent me to an Evant Linstrom. He’s an associate of yours, he said. You know Ryne Howar?”

  That piqued Linstrom’s interest; his air of bother waned. “I see,” he said. He threw the boot he held to the floor and rose to shake Vane’s hand. “Let’s talk in the storeroom, shall we? Terrance, bolt the front door and join us.”

  So Vane had been right to judge the second cobbler Linstrom’s accomplice; Gratton had warned one worked with him.

  The poorly clad Terrance took little time to follow Linstrom and Vane into a large closet. Shelves held scraps of leather, while awls and other tools hung from hooks on the walls. The room lacked furniture or any place to sit, so the men stood.

  Linstrom lit a wall lamp with an incantation before he swung the door shut with another—Mudar, one of the first Vane had learned—and cast a sound barrier that made the closet glow yellow. Vane’s heart was beating faster than usual, and sweat broke out on the back of his neck. The leather’s odor was sickening.

  Linstrom demanded, “You’re Howar’s cousin? What has he told you?”

  “Only that I should speak with you. Thinks I’d be interested in some offer you might have. He said you’d find my visit a pleasant surprise.”

  Linstrom observed, “It’s not your average man who doesn’t blink at the sight of three incantations cast in a row.”

  Vane responded, “Mudar,” and a box of nails that had fallen to the floor flew up into Linstrom’s hand. “I’m not your average man.”

  Linstrom nodded in approval. “No wonder that cousin of yours thought we should meet. Again, how much did he tell you?”

  “Mentioned our meeting up wouldn’t be something the king would like, and left it there.” That was the only safe answer to give. Anything more would paint Howar as having a loose tongue.

  The man called Terrance sneered. “And that brought you here from—Podrar, is it?”

  Vane’s new accent. Rexson’s spy explained, “Ryne was cryptic enough to inspire the journey, seeing as anything the king wouldn’t like is generally all right by me.”

  Linstrom asked, “And why would that be?”

  “Because His Majesty’s a bloody fool, that’s why.”

  “In what sense?” Linstrom demanded. “What’s your grudge? Most deem the man rules fairly enough. He created the Magic Council. Supports the sorcerer-duke….”

  Vane sprang at Linstrom. He pushed him back against the shelves, where folds of leather tumbled down around them. “Don’t mention the Duke of Ingleton in front of me! Do you know who I am? I’m the Duke of Yangerton’s bastard. Carson Amison’s, the man Ingleton damn well butchered ten years back.”

  Linstrom hazarded, “Yangerton was no sorcerer.”

  “I got my magic from my mother. As for my father: Yangerton had his flaws, but he sent her money through the years. When she fell ill, he started sending more. I never met him, but I sure as hell respected him. Followed his work on the Foreign Affairs Council.

  “My mother’s health was going when that maniac slew Amison, and in cold blood. The money stopped. I didn’t know magic then and I couldn’t afford a doctor, so she died. Ingleton killed my mother when he killed Yangerton, that’s simple fact. As for His Majesty tucked away in the Crystal Palace, well, he sees fit to accept Ingleton as his personal lap dog of a sorcerer, doesn’t he?”

  Vane’s blood went cold. He had indeed killed the Duke of Yangerton a decade back, after casting a spell to trade places with August, a pregnant August, whom Yangerton had been about to stab in the abdomen. Vane took the dagger instead, before slicing open the monster’s chest with an incantation. He avoided referencing the event whenever possible, and sensed that Terrance, if not Linstrom, would gut him a second time at the slightest suspicion his story was cock and bull.

  Terrance nodded in approbation of Vane’s hatred, while Linstrom adjusted his tunic and pushed Vane against the door, an arm to his throat. “No one touches me, is that clear? I will bleed you dry if you lay a hand on me again.”

  Vane forced out some phrase that signaled he understood, and Linstrom released his chokehold. Terrance asked, unmoved, “Got a name beyond Howar’s cousin?”

  “That depends,” said Vane. “You got a job for me?”

  Linstrom cast a quizzical eye over the newcomer. Vane stared right back, and Linstrom’s lips stretched in a smirk. Good: the man’s last doubts were settled. He repeated, “Do I have a job for you? Of a sort, Howar’s cousin. Of a sort. I can’t promise payment in coin, but you’ll have your pick of the spoils.”

  “What spoils?”

  “From this area. Shops, homes: any place but the Temple. The Temple’s forbidden. I won’t condone sacrilege.”

  Vane crossed his arms and leaned back, letting out a slow, deliberate breath. “You planning to attack Partsvale?”

  Linstrom confided, “You don’t like the king’s choice of pets, it seems. I don’t like the king. The man’s an utter fraud. Claims to champion the magicked, to strive for their good, their integration into government….”

  “So he does,” said Vane. “He has his Magic Council. Got to concede him that.”

  “I concede him nothing! I applied to that council, when Rexson Phinnean announced it. Was flatly ignored, despite my sorcery, despite recommendations from Partsvale’s mayor and a keen self-education in all things related to magic: history, politics, even legend and myth. I may be a cobbler, but I can read, and I’ve read a damn good number of books. Good enough for that two-faced tyrant, at least.”

  Linstrom had applied for the council? Had been overlooked? That made no sense. Vane had witnessed the council interviews, and the king had given everyone interested the chance to plead his case for appointment.

  “The king ignored you?” pressed Vane.

  “I got no recognition whatsoever. No token gratitude for my interest, no interview…. I was livid at being snubbed. Through the years I wondered, and doubted, what about my application made me undeserving of even a wave of dismissal. I began to suspect that what had worked against me could very well have been the word sorcerer attached to my name. The council’s make-up, after all, was public knowledge. No sorcerers beyond the king’s dog, as you so aptly describe him, and Zacry Porteg. The academic whose essays inspired the king’s notion for the council to begin with.”

  Linstrom paused a moment, and then went on. “I wondered, to the point of obsession. I crafted a spell to bring me into contact with other sorcerers who had applied for the Magic Council. Took me years t
o track them all: here, the capital, Yangerton, the fishing villages. Even one who had moved to the mining towns. Guess how many sorcerers had expressed interest?”

  A score, if Vane had to pick a number. The score of sorcerers in Linstrom’s band. He could not admit to knowing that, of course. He swallowed, praying not to vomit his breakfast all over Linstrom’s shoes.

  “I’ve no idea how many wanted a seat. I didn’t involve myself in that. Was never political, until that piece of horseshit killed my father.”

  “Twenty,” Linstrom raged. “A full twenty, each and every one given the same treatment I received. We’ve joined forces to expose the crown for the sham it is. To cause Rexson Phinnean all the headache and unrest we can, beginning in Partsvale, because Partsvale, my friend, will be only the start. I’ve done research into my ancestry, and it so happens I’m descended from Hansrelto. Interesting, no? His revolt in ancient times, I’ll exceed it.”

  Vane knew Hansrelto’s story: an ancient sorcerer, he had tried to overthrow one of Rexson’s forebears and written the darkest book of magic anyone in the present day could name. His military movement had entrenched the stigma against magic that still existed.

  Linstrom moved back from Hansrelto to Rexson Phinnean. “If the king wants to persecute sorcerers, tread upon us, fine, but he’ll do it openly. We’ll expose his snub in newspapers throughout Herezoth the week before our first attack. Then people won’t be sure whether we’re the culprits, or a group acting on our behalf enraged by the exposé. One thing’s for sure, though: they’ll hold the king responsible.

  “We’ll vary our numbers and tactics, to keep people guessing whether our assaults are related. We’ll keep the king’s men busy rebuilding towns and calming hysteria, so they won’t have time to hunt us. I swear, His Majesty won’t receive accolades as the magicked’s champion when he’ll have nothing to do with sorcerers, not the slightest damned….”

  “I see,” said Vane. Miraculously, he kept his voice from shaking. “I see, and I’m in. Maybe once we get started he’ll send Ingleton to stop us. Maybe I’ll kill the scoundrel same as he killed my father. Forget the king, it’s Ingleton I want. The man’s to be mine. That’s my only condition.”