“He was there,” she announced.
Kansten seemed the only one to hear her. She turned back to Kora, the others following, and asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Zalski. In the Landfill, before the ambush. When we were talking with Neslan and Bennie. He was there.”
Lanokas groaned. Bidd and Hayden exchanged confused but frightened glances. Kansten, in denial, looked as though Kora had slapped her. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “The door never opened, and the windows were closed, they were locked.”
“He used that transport spell.”
Hayden took a moment to force himself to speak. “Wouldn’t…. Kora, wouldn’t you have seen Zalski if he appeared in some room you were in?”
“Zalski likes to turn invisible.”
“Sweet Lord,” said Kansten, deluding herself no longer. She put a hand on the nearest horse’s back to steady herself. “Galisan. We gave Galisan away. And this mission, we told the others all about it.”
Lanokas looked gray, but his voice was calm. Just its tone brought Kora some measure of clarity. “Let’s be methodical,” he said. “Whoever followed Neslan would need half an hour to reach the Palace. From the Landfill? Half an hour, if not longer. Another ten at the least to meet with Zalski and explain what he’d discovered, to gather a group of men. On top of that, I’m not sure Zalski could have traveled to the cabin by magic. He couldn’t have visualized it, not if he’d never seen the place. Laskenay’s always talking about visualizing….”
“You don’t know that he couldn’t transport there,” said Kansten.
“He’d never been to that part of the city, I’d bet my life on it. Not the slums, not he. So he probably took another thirty minutes to follow the informant back with that band of guardsmen, and we talked business right away, for no more than forty, forty-five minutes. I can’t think he heard a word about Galisan, or Petroc.”
“He would have thought I dreamed Petroc,” said Kora, her heart slowing just a little. “He refuses to believe the Marked One’s appeared on his watch. He would have to admit what he’s actually done to Herezoth.”
“But did he hear us say we were going north?”
“He might have,” said Lanokas. “But he doesn’t know we left when we did, and he can’t expect us to cross the river the way we’re going to. We made it this far. We have to carry on.”
“What else did we talk about?” pressed Kansten. “What else? My mind’s gone blank.”
Kora assured her, “Nothing related to the League. The good old days, more than anything. Look, it could have been worse, much worse.” But Kora shivered.
No one felt like eating breakfast. They readied the horses and moved on, Kora with a new sense of vulnerability that would not leave her and was all the more powerful after her short, unexpected revel in mastering Zalski’s transport spell.
The day wore on in a solemn truce between the Leaguesmen and the teenage boys in their squabble about separating. Bidd’s enthusiasm over Kora’s new spell had evaporated, but neither he nor his cousin mentioned continuing past the river. Hayden, who had always spoken less than Bidd, now said next to nothing. When darkness fell, the five passed the night in a dingy roadside inn where Kora suspected everyone, including the innkeeper, was wanted for one thing or another. The custom of the place was for patrons to keep to themselves, and Kora’s group was happy to oblige. Kora studied those around her, trying to determine if one of them could be the previous night’s mystery horseman, but the likeliest candidate, a man traveling alone who smelled of dye and claimed to be going to Partsvale’s shrine—a commonly cited destination, Kora learned—seemed a bit too wide around and a bit too steady on his feet. In truth, she would have been disappointed if he were the rider. He looked nothing but a common black marketeer.
On second thought, Kora doubted that anyone who took the trouble to travel in the dead of night would show his face at a public inn. He wanted stealth. She dropped her speculations and pulled a chipped set of dice from her pack. Lanokas raised an accusatory eyebrow.
“I paid for these,” she insisted. “At the last inn. I’m not so good with cards, so….”
They wagered Lanokas’s coins. Kora came out third, behind Hayden’s first and the prince’s second, in a five-contender match. Bidd did worst of all, gambling large amounts on long chances and taking his losses in stride. Why would he not? No one cared about money that would go back to Lanokas and was at no real risk. Not to think of Zalski for one short hour, to put out of mind what a slaughterhouse he could have made the Landfill, was the purpose of the game, a blessing turned curse when afterward Kora’s mind returned to the same worn tracks it had traveled all day.
The scene played out before her. Zalski’s deep, strong voice cut through the air, and she, Kora, fell first, her body crumpling as it tumbled to the filthy floor near the wall where she and Bendelof were talking about bandanas. Because Kora would go first: she alone had real power to protect the others. She watched them jump, saw (her heart sped up) Sedder’s face contort as he stared at her, saw Bendelof try to revive her, Neslan and Kansten rush the invisible sorcerer. Lanokas jerked a hand in the voice’s direction, but Zalski was too quick. The prince was the second down; between his birth and his magic there was no one else Zalski would attack. Neslan and Kansten followed before reaching the bodiless voice, their corpses tossing through the air, limbs flailing like they were made of silk cloth, snapping with a crunch no fabric could ever make. Then Bennie, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, still bending over Kora. Only Sedder was left, and he shut his eyes, steeling himself as the voice spoke again.
Pulgaqua!
Bidd trudged off to the room the men had let. Hayden and Lanokas followed, and after sitting for a few moments before the fire, Kora and Kansten turned in for lack of anything else to do. They looked at each other as they climbed in their hard, uncomfortable beds—Kora’s smelt of pipe smoke—and Kora’s mind was still fixed on the Landfill. She lay awake, reliving the last hours she had spent within its walls, remembering a rustle that came from the dust-infested corner as she told Sedder about going north, a rustle she suspected her exhausted, tormented brain may be imagining. Kansten’s breathing in the dark was heavy, uneven; she too did not sleep, and Kora wondered what, in Kansten’s mind, the death order would have been.
* * *
The day dawned cool with a promise of rain, but Kora was glad to leave the inn. The air of futility about the place sat ill with her, not to mention the smoky smell, which sat on her and would cling to her for days. The silence among her companions was as heavy as the first fat drop that fell around midday. Steadily, almost mindlessly, Kora followed Bidd’s lead from the back of the group. The rain became a fast drizzle, a dull, unchanging patter that kept people off the road. Kora saw no one even as they spotted a pair of grain silos in the distance rising above a cornfield, the first sign of the town ahead. Bidd guided his horse into a thicket whose grass rose to the animal’s knee. Kora was last to turn after him, her thoughts on the town she was skirting.
Kora had heard about this place all her life: Fontferry, so named for the fountain that used to stand in the village square and the passenger boats that operated just south of the town’s southern limit. The road bridge crossed the Podra north of the small but growing community, the northernmost on the river’s east bank.
Ilana Porteg had been a child in Fontferry. She had lived in a farmhouse here with her mother until she was twelve, and remembering the stories Ilana told about her childhood friends, about fishing with her grandfather, about the annual watermelon fair, made Ilana’s daughter homesick.
The rain came down more heavily now. It had soaked Kora through, but she hardly noticed. She had spent all afternoon wet.
Don’t get sentimental. You’ve never gone north. You don’t know this place or anyone who lives here.
Still, Kora felt a strange longing for the town, as though her family waited there, her mother chiding her absence, her father counting the minutes until his da
ughter arrived and his wife would stop her grumbling. Kora changed her train of thought, began to pray that no one waited in this thicket. The grass’s height was ideal for an ambush.
As the sun sank, Bidd led the group to a grove of oak trees. The river’s tumble harmonized with the rain that splattered on branches overhead. Darkness thickened beneath the oaks, and Kora inched her horse closer to Hayden, who rode in front of her. The Podra’s roar grew until Kora was sure, without seeing any bank, that it stood only feet away. Everyone dismounted. Bidd tangled his reins in a branch while Lanokas asked Kora, “There’s no way you can move us and the horses?”
“We’d have to leave them eventually, we can’t take them to the mountains. We might as well leave them here. The boys can watch them.”
Lanokas asked the cousins, “This place is safe?”
“I’ve been here tons of times,” said Bidd. “No one comes here. I’d still appreciate it if you got your butts back soon, mind.”
Kora broke through the last barrier of trees and saw a rocky, sloping incline to the quarter-mile-wide river. The dusk was lighter outside the grove; she made out a wooden pier on the opposite bank with a canoe tied to it. She steeled herself, then walked back through the oaks to find Kansten and Lanokas.
“Are you ready?” Kora asked. Her stomach felt knotted. The grove’s darkness closed around her like rushing water above her head. If the spell went wrong, she would not be the only one to drown….
Lanokas must have sensed her hesitation, because he said they trusted her. He gripped Kora’s palm with a steadying firmness. Kansten held so tightly to Kora’s fingers her nails dug into them. Kora shut her eyes, focused all her energy on the lonesome little pier. “Trasporte.”
The rain pounded her face, running over her clenched eyelids. She had left the shelter of the trees, and the ground felt firmer, less giving than the leaf-strewn mud she had been standing in. Lanokas squeezed her hand to acknowledge her accomplishment; Kansten’s nails still sliced Kora’s skin, and Kora welcomed the pain because it meant Kansten was not tossing in the river.
Kora stood on the wooden dock, her body perpendicular to the line of the riverbank. At the edge of her vision, a distant glow marked the ferry landing. Kansten shifted her weight, and the planks creaked. Lanokas said, “Let’s go before we’re seen.”
The rain and wind were cold on the churning river, especially in the dark, so Kora made no protest. Kansten found a rough trail through the wooded region that encroached upon the bank, and they took it, thinking it might lead them to a road. The path had turned to mud; it was strewn with leaves, rocks, and twigs, and filled with pits of varying depths that overflowed with water and were impossible to see in the ever-progressing night.
“Will the ferry be running?” Kansten asked.
Lanokas replied, “Not in this weather.”
“There’s an inn right off the bank,” said Kora. “On this side. By the ferry landing.”
Kansten asked, “How in the world would you…?”
“My mother grew up here,” Kora told her. Then she stumbled, and paused to yank her left leg free; it had sunk mid-calf in muck. “Listen, let’s make for the road and head back to the river. To that inn. We can act like we’ll take the morning ferry. It’s out of our way, but we’ve been traveling all day in this mess.”
“I’d risk anything for a roof right now,” said Lanokas.
Kansten said, “And if the inn’s closed since Kora’s mother was a child?”
“It hasn’t,” said Lanokas. “I was there two years ago.”
They followed the path for half an hour, losing their footing and grumbling all the way. Finally, they saw the lights of what looked like a two-story farmhouse of some kind. They found and passed the fork that led to its door, and continued another ten minutes before reaching the main road.
The road was cobblestoned, and slippery from the rain, so the Leaguesmen slid continually as they walked. At least the downpour stopped as Kora, Lanokas, and Kansten worked their way east, toward the ferry landing and its lamps. The full moon, now risen, made marking puddles and holes a simpler task. Soon Kora could hear the river again, the pier became more than a dull guiding glow, and new lights appeared, from a small building off to the right. “The inn,” said Kansten. They trudged forward with renewed vigor.
A red-haired sprite of a woman ran the establishment, a tiny person with a high-pitched, obliging voice. Her cheap perfume smelled of rose petals; she had doused herself with it. She looked close in age to Kora’s mother, and she fussed over the damp, dirty trio as sincerely as Ilana would have.
“You poor dears, how long have you been out in that weather?” she asked. Her three new guests huddled in the doorway while they pulled off their boots.
“Too long to know,” said Kansten.
“This is no day to be tramping about the countryside. You’d better….” The innkeeper’s voice faded as she looked at Lanokas. “You’ve been here before.”
“Different business,” he told her. “We’re returning from the Miracle Pool. Stopping the night to check supply levels, that’s all.”
The woman’s voice became a squeak. “You don’t need to restock? Take anything with you?”
“Not from here.”
The innkeeper let out a breath she had been holding. Was she affiliated with the League? Kora could not see how; Zalski’s power stretched thinner up here. Her bright eyes moved to Kora, and she frowned again, as though her guest looked oddly familiar, though Kora was certain she had never seen this woman.
“You three had better dry off. The fire’s lit. I’ll scrounge up some towels.”
Kora looked around the room. Some seven people were in it, including a family with a school-aged son and a toddler. None of them looked to have traveled that day. They were clean and dry, the inn cheery and well lit, and nothing made Kora think of criminals or outlaws or spawned fears of a possible raid by a troop of soldiers. What should have been a wonderful normalcy hung about the place, a normalcy Kora had known only once since leaving home, at Nani’s house, and which intensified the homesickness that glimpsing Fontferry had roused in her.
Kansten led the way to the hearth. The fire’s warmth was such a comfort it wiped Kora’s mind blank. She closed her eyes, let the heat turn her cheeks a rosy pink, and only turned her head when she heard a small voice calling, “Auntie? Auntie Teena?”
An auburn haired, freckle-faced boy somewhere between two and three years old had come in, dragging a patched and faded blanket. He looked up at Kora with droopy brown eyes, then peered at Lanokas, who took a step back.
“You’re not Auntie Teena. Auntie Teena!!!”
The sprite woman returned, looking even smaller than before, half-hidden behind a stack of frayed towels.
“Auntie Teena….”
“Just a moment, Vane.” The boy rubbed his eyes. Auntie Teena, as she was called, thrust the towels into Kansten’s arms. Kora grabbed the top two, handing one to Lanokas, while the innkeeper dropped to one knee to speak to the toddler. “I’m sleepy,” he said.
“It’s your bedtime, isn’t it?” She scooped him up. “Let’s get you tucked in.” Teena told the trio, “I’ll put washbasins in your rooms. They’re the farthest down the hall on the right. I don’t have others available, so they’ll have to do. Warm yourselves a bit more, and I’ll be right back. There’s potato soup for dinner. It’s nearly finished cooking, so you’re just in time.”
“We’ll take three bowls in our rooms,” said Kansten.
“You need something hot on a day like this. Catch your death of wet you will.”
Teena scurried to the hall. Kora was loath to leave the fire, but her bandana was attracting eyes, and she felt uncomfortable. At less reputable inns people wore hats, or scarves, all kinds of unusual clothes, and no one cared, but Kora was markedly odd in a place like this, not least because her bandana was dripping wet and the only natural response was to take it off. When the innkeeper brought their washwater, Kor
a tore herself from the flames and found her room for the night. She had hardly closed the door behind Teena when Kansten opened it again.
“Go dry off,” said Kora, trying not to sound bitter. After all, there was no reason for Kansten to leave the common room. Kora dipped her towel in the basin and wiped her face.
“I don’t feel like being with people. They weren’t only staring at you, you know. All three of us came in mud-splattered.”
“I was there. Listen, can you tell Lanokas to see me when he gets a chance? I need to talk to you two.”
“The basins are here,” said Kansten, wringing her towel in an empty bowl. “He’ll stop by.”
445
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Teena Unsten
Kora washed, but her clothes were still damp and mud-stained. She opened her sack for new ones with a groan, though she was hardly surprised her things were soaked. She evaporated the moisture with the same vanishing spell that had spared her the ordeal of pulling an arrow out of Hank Spiller’s chest. Then she dried Kansten’s sack, and they changed into fresh dresses.
They changed frocks at every inn, but never with as much gusto as that night. Kora was in the habit of casting cleaning spells on their clothes, ones she had found in the book of household magic, but their dresses had never been this soiled, and Kora could not prevent some irreparable staining. All in all, her results were better than expected.
Kora and Kansten had a double room, humbly decorated but well kept and comfortable. A lamp on the end table gave ample light. Kansten sank to her bed, her gloom at odds with the inn’s homey nature but matching the ache in Kora’s heart too well.
Why so homesick? Could Kora’s mother have known Teena? Ilana mentioned this place each time she described her hometown, and never once had she talked about the old innkeeper’s daughter, if he had one. Ilana’s stories were always about family, her tales of the inn about Saturday excursions for breakfast with her grandparents.
The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 24