‘So South Coasters in your world are slaves?’
‘Were, Garec,’ Steven said. ‘It was long ago, a grim time for our world.’ Turning back to Mark, he asked, ‘Are you thinking that the servant girl—’
‘Regona Carvic,’ Garec said, ‘remember, from Tenner’s letter?’
‘Are you thinking that Regona somehow came through the portal to your world? That she’s related to you?’
Mark shrugged. ‘Why else would Nerak and then Lessek draw my attention to that comment, my prince?’
‘Holy shit, buddy, but that’s assuming a lot,’ Steven said. ‘I don’t see how it would be possible – the far portals have been in Nerak’s control ever since Sandcliff Palace fell, and Regona was taken to Prince Danmark’s chambers at least a Twinmoon after that. If Nerak had the portals, how could she have got through?’
Mark turned to Gilmour. ‘When Nerak was in Estrad, busying himself with Doctor Tenner and the fire at Riverend, where was the portal?’
‘I don’t know. All I can work out is that Nerak had it hidden somewhere in the city where no one would find it; he most likely did the same thing the day he took Prince Marek in Pellia. He probably hid the portal at Welstar Palace, made the trip downriver to the capital and took the prince right there at his father’s side.’
‘But the portal wouldn’t have been in his control when he was out causing havoc or taking souls?’ Mark felt another piece slip into place.
‘No. Theoretically, the portal would have been available, if not open, for someone else to use.’
Mark wished he had some time to himself, to draw a diagram or a crude timeline. He drank from the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and asked, ‘Steven, why do we live in Idaho Springs?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What are we doing there? I love it there, but I freely admit I don’t fit in as well as I might someplace else. And you, you’re worse than me. How many decent jobs did you pass up after finishing your MBA? Three? Four?’
‘What’s your point?’
‘Maybe we don’t have a choice. Maybe we were supposed to find Lessek’s key and we couldn’t leave. Look at you: you do magic with no spells or potions. You just think of things you want to happen; you will them to happen and they happen. Is that the staff, Steven, or is that you? Are you a real sorcerer, or are you a guy who found a magic stick that somehow got into his bones? I’m asking because I don’t know. But then I couple that with the fact that I left Fort Collins to come to the foothills and take a teaching job that pays less than just about any job I could have found down in Denver or in one of the suburbs. So I wonder what we’re doing there, and if we are there by choice.’
‘No one is forcing me to live in Idaho Springs, Mark,’ Steven said with a degree of uncertainty. ‘My parents live there.’
‘But why? Do you think they had a choice?’ Steven was about to respond when Mark pressed on, ‘Think about the communication I have allegedly had from Lessek. He quiets my fears moments after I arrive in Eldarn. It’s a memory from a day at the beach with my family. My dad is drinking beer. I had been drinking beer; I’m comforted by the memory and it takes me weeks to realise I’m supposed to be thinking about my dad. Lessek didn’t give a pinch of shit whether I was comfortable or not. He hit me with a memory of home, because he needed me thinking about why my dad was such an anomaly: he’s the only guy on the beach facing west; he has three hundred pictures of a family vacation that spanned thirty-seven states and almost all of them were taken within one hundred miles of Idaho Springs. He was drawn there, Steven, just like us.’
Steven was shaking his head. ‘You aren’t the prince of Eldarn, Mark.’
‘You’re right,’ he answered, hearing the almor’s cavernous voice echo in his head, ‘I’m not – not yet – because I believe my dad is Rona’s prince, Eldarn’s king. I won’t be until he dies, and that’s fine with me, I hope he lives to be a hundred and six.’
Steven stood up. ‘Do we have any wine left? I need a drink. Mark, this is crazy. You can’t be the prince of Rona, and I am not a sorcerer. We weren’t drawn to Idaho Springs, because there was nothing in Idaho Springs to draw us there.’
‘Yes there was,’ Mark interrupted. ‘You have it in your coat pocket.’
‘Lessek’s key?’
‘That night in our house, we chucked it away – we thought it was nothing, maybe a hunk of some crazy miner’s rock – and yet I felt it that night, Steven, and I felt it again when you came back here, that day by the fjord. It’s something I can’t explain, but it reminds me of when I get a flight back to Long Island to see my family: it’s about feeling safe, like I belong – feeling like I’m at home. That hunk of ore makes me feel like that – when I stand next to you and you have it in your pocket, and when I stand next to your bloody saddlebag when you have it packed away. At any given moment, I can pinpoint the location of that stone, even blindfolded.’
‘This is too much, Mark,’ Steven said. ‘You had a bad dream. I’m sorry Rodler called you a Southie, but you can’t take that insult and decide it means you’re sovereign of Eldarn.’ He was growing exasperated. ‘It’s too great a leap. You can’t explain the portals. I know for a fact that the safe-deposit box was never opened at the bank because the key was missing until I found it at Hannah’s shop. There are no records of any deposits or withdrawals from the day William Higgins opened the accounts in 1870. That portal was secure.’
‘But the other was not,’ Mark argued. ‘Imagine if Doctor Tenner, before he died in the fire, made arrangements to send Regona through the portal. Think about where she would be safest from Nerak – it’s certainly not in Randel with Weslox. She would be safest delivering that baby in a medically advanced society – even in 1870 – and then raising it there. He probably figured he would go and find her later, after the trouble had passed – he might even have drafted the letter I found behind the fireplace as a decoy, after all, everyone talks about this guy as if he was a genius.’
‘That couldn’t be the case,’ Gilmour said.
Mark turned on the old man, his argument ready, but Gilmour went on, ‘It would have been Lessek.’
There was an almost tangible silence, broken only by Rodler’s breathing and the ever-present babble of the nearby river. It was Steven who finally spoke. ‘Not you, too, Gilmour. This is madness.’
‘Actually, it makes sense, except Tenner – he was a brilliant physician and an excellent advisor to Prince Marek, but he knew nothing of the Larion portals. After the Larion Senate fell, only Kantu and I knew they existed, and how to use them to cross the Fold. Kantu was in Middle Fork; I was wandering broken and lost. The only person who could have done it was Lessek – he could have detected the portal and sent Regona across the Fold. He might have known that Eldarn’s monarch would be drawn to the keystone, one of our world’s most powerful talismans, even across great expanses of open land or water. Mark’s deductions, however fantastic, are quite reasonable. I’m not saying this is true, but it certainly could be. Lessek could have intercepted Regona on her way to Randel and sent her across the Fold to your world.’
‘But how?’ Steven was still far from convinced. ‘If Nerak was in Riverend, kindling Estrad’s biggest bonfire and killing off the rest of the Ronan royal family, how much time would Regona and Lessek have had? Nerak couldn’t have been there for very long.’
‘Lessek would have been able to detect the portal, even when closed—’
‘I believe that,’ Mark interrupted ‘When we opened it that night in our house, we could feel its energy as soon as Steven cracked the seal on the cylinder.’
‘Why isn’t it doing that now?’ Steven asked suddenly. ‘It’s there in my pack. Why can’t we feel it?’
‘You’ve grown accustomed to it,’ Gilmour said. ‘If we took that portal to somewhere never touched by Larion magic, the people there would feel a tingling in the air like you did. Regardless, if Lessek was on hand, he could have escorted Regona to the far portal and all
owed her to open it.’
‘She had to do it?’ Mark asked.
‘Lessek would have been a wraith,’ Gilmour said. ‘He may have looked like a normal man, but he would not have been able to open the portal by himself.’
Steven considered their argument aloud. ‘So Lessek knows Nerak has the portal hidden in Estrad. He meets Regona outside the palace while Nerak is inside, burning the place to the ground. Lessek encourages Regona to open the portal and proceed, alone and pregnant, to a foreign world, where she is drawn by the force of his key to Idaho Springs, Colorado – oh, and somewhere along the line gives birth to Mark’s great-great-great-grandmother?’
‘Or grandfather,’ Mark said. ‘Otherwise, yep, that about sums it up.’
‘I see.’ Scepticism was thick in Steven’s voice. ‘But you’re overlooking the fact that your family isn’t from Colorado.’
‘True, but my great-grandmother moved west when she was married and my grandfather worked for the railroad, crisscrossing the west from their home in Cheyenne. My father was actually born in St Louis and lived in the Midwest before moving to New York. I’m telling you, Steven, he and Mom had planned for that trip to San Francisco for years. They literally saved every penny they could for it – they had a big jar on the kitchen counter. It was their dream to go to the Pacific and we had to pry Dad out of those mountains with a crowbar. He just didn’t want to leave. And in what community in 1870 would a dark-skinned, single mother have been accepted? If she was in the United States, it had to be the black community: no whites would have had anything to do with her.’
Steven said, ‘Your great-great-great-grandmother was from Rona.’
‘I don’t know,’ Mark sighed. ‘I know it’s crazy – but Lessek is trying to tell me something; he’s been trying since my first night here, on the beach near Estrad. I just haven’t been able to figure out what it is, and this is the only thing that makes sense.’
‘If you’re right, how would Nerak know?’
‘I have no idea,’ Mark answered. ‘Unless he knew the key would have pulled me to Idaho Springs, and your bank.’
‘What about me? He doesn’t seem to know anything about me, and I worked in the damned bank for three years – and we share the house. If what you say is true, I’ve been a victim of Lessek’s key as well. Why doesn’t Nerak know who I am?’
‘I can’t begin to say, but if the opportunity ever arises, we should definitely ask him.’ Mark walked over to where Rodler slept and, kicking the smuggler a good deal harder than he had his roommate, said sharply, ‘Wake up, asshole.’
Rodler was up like a cornered animal, a thin dirk held tightly in one fist, no trace of sleep in his sharply focused eyes. ‘What’s happening? Is it a patrol?’
For a moment, Mark was impressed with the man’s response, though sleeping with one eye open was most likely a necessity for him. Still, he didn’t like Rodler and didn’t approve of his business. He had decided he would kill Malakasians without guilt, his way of dealing with the helplessness he felt in the wake of Brynne’s death. Mark might not like war, but he recognised there were times when it was inevitable. Diplomacy in Eldarn had died the night Nerak killed Prince Markon at Riverend Palace and he had taken up arms for the oppressed. He might kill, but he would never deal in drugs, no matter how lucrative it might be.
Now grinning at Rodler, Mark asked, ‘You wouldn’t happen to have been in Colorado Springs last winter for the Colorado State Swimming Championships, would you? Maybe sitting next to a man from Fort Collins? He had on a green sweatshirt.’
The man blinked several times in confusion, then sheathed his dirk. ‘Mark Jenkins, I don’t even know what most of those words mean. But no, I was not in Color-ado last winter. I have never heard of that territory. Is it in Rona?’
‘I’m relieved to hear that – but I woke you up to make certain you understand that if you ever disparage me, my skin colour or my race again, I will kill you. All right?’
‘Gods rut a mule, Mark, but I thought we were already beyond this.’ He shook his head in disappointment. ‘I was doing my own thing, when you appeared and started shouting. I would have been very happy to have missed the four of you by a thousand paces, believe me.’
‘Just so you understand – and Rodler, I truly am glad that you weren’t in Colorado Springs last winter.’
‘And why is that?’ The younger man sighed.
‘Because you would be dead already.’ Mark turned back to his blankets. ‘Good night.’
THE RAID
‘Wake up,’ Brexan whispered, ‘Sallax, wake up. It’s another raid.’ She rolled to her feet. Her back ached from eight nights of sleeping on a hard wooden floor, but she ignored it and squirmed into her tunic.
From the bed, Sallax groaned and opened his eyes.
‘No peeking, you rutter!’ She turned towards the wall, then said, ‘No, never mind, just get up – hurry! I can hear them, maybe two doors down. We have to get you down the back stairs.’ Her hair a tangle and her tunic unbelted, Brexan rushed to his side and began unwrapping his injured shoulder. It was healing; Jacrys had done an admirable job of rebreaking and setting the bones, but it should have remained bound, without interruption, for the next Moon.
Sallax winced.
‘I know. I know,’ she whispered. ‘We have to, just until they’re gone.’ The Malakasian soldiers and their Seron escort (Prince Malagon’s Seron warriors were brutal and efficient, but not adept at espionage) were searching for a woman travelling with an injured man who was addled, and nearly incoherent in his speech. The raids had started two days after she and Sallax fled Carpello’s warehouse. She thought she had left Jacrys dead, but when the searches began she realised that somehow the resilient bastard spy had survived Sallax clobbering him with the wooden table leg. Now Jacrys was obviously directing the periodic raids – maybe even from his hospital bed – as the soldiers and Seron crawled into every cabinet, beneath every building and inside every cargo hold.
They had her description; of that Brexan was certain, so she sheared off her hair – and nearly burst into tears when an emaciated, cropped-haired ghost stared back at her from the mirror. But what Jacrys had planned for her would be far worse than a tragic hair-cut.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘they’re close this time.’ From outside the window, Brexan heard the screams of those Orindale citizens unfortunate enough to be the search subjects this pre-dawn aven. The shouting was more a warning that a raid was coming than the city folk being badly injured by the searchers.
Sallax was up and dressed when she heard the front room door burst open, kicked off its hinges as the first of the Seron made their way into the inn. ‘Pissing demons,’ she said, ‘they’re here already. Come on. Down the back stairs, right away.’ She hurried Sallax out the door and along the darkened hallway, careful not to touch his shoulder, waiting to hear a barked command to halt at any moment. In her haste, she had forgotten her belt; now she scurried downstairs without any weapons.
‘Trenchers again?’ Sallax drawled.
‘Is that all right? Can you do trenchers this morning? I will get you all the trenchers in the kitchen if you promise not to say anything to anyone but me.’
‘Trenchers, yes,’ Sallax said, ‘and he won’t say anything.’
‘Good job. Outstanding, and you just wash the trenchers until I come back for you. It will be just a few moments, all right?’
‘Trenchers, yes.’
They reached the service entrance and Brexan hurriedly lit several paraffin tapers from coals still burning in the fireplace. Illuminating the small room, she positioned the big Ronan at a tub of water, pushed a cloth into his hand – and then discovered that every trencher in the scullery had been scrubbed clean and stacked neatly beside the hearth. From the front room, she heard the sound of heavily booted feet stomping up the stairs to the guest chambers. ‘Bleeding whores,’ she said, sweating, ‘every rutting dish is already clean.’ She sidled across to a large pot of leftover st
ew, ladled some into as many trenchers as she dared and piled the soiled dishes beside the tub. ‘Can you clean these?’
‘Trenchers,’ Sallax said, hefting one to eye level and watching as bits of stew dribbled down his wrist to the wooden tabletop.
‘Excellent,’ she said, kissing him quickly on the cheek. ‘You clean up. I’ll be back.’
She had paid the tavern owner an extra silver piece to be permitted to secrete Sallax into the kitchen whenever the Redstone was searched. This was the third time in eight days. She worried that some smart officer might wonder why a scullery worker would be cleaning trenchers during the overnight and predawn avens, but thus far, her luck had prevailed: the raiding parties stormed through the inn, searching every room, including the kitchen, and left without a second glance at the big simpleton.
Hiding herself the first night had been challenging: at a loss for any other option, Brexan had slipped into the squalid chamber where the tavern staff bedded down and, stripping off her tunic and leggings, she had dived into bed with that same waiter who had been her antidote to loneliness: too much wine and sex with a stranger. She shocked the young man near to death as she helped him out of his bed clothes and began fondling him beneath the blankets, but when the soldiers burst into the room and she had feigned shock and terror along with the others, they were in no doubt about what the kitchen maid and the waiter were up to.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Brexan had kissed the confused boy affectionately and slipped back into her clothes, then headed off to retrieve Sallax.
That evening, the young man had looked at her questioningly. Not knowing whether she would be forced to take refuge beneath his covers of his bed again, she smiled at him. ‘Shame we were so rudely interrupted,’ she whispered, ‘but I guess that’s what we have to put up with these days.’ She didn’t want him to know she was the target of the raid.
This morning all the tavern staff were already awake when she arrived, stirred by the sounds of raiders stomping upstairs and through the guest chambers. Several had lit bedside tapers, and no one appeared surprised when Brexan entered the room.
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