“Thank you,” Kora told the captain, hoping to keep relations cordial. “Thank you.”
The troll nodded in response, the trace of a smile on his face but no jovial spark in his eye. Kora resisted the urge to shiver as she passed him. She was not sure how fond she was of trolls, but she was in awe to have survived the encounter with these: so far, that was. Rankush was not in the best of spirits, and Kora noticed Lanokas return his hand to his sword hilt. After a few seconds Kansten glanced behind. “Your friend back there is something,” she said.
“Pikebash no is friend,” snarled Rankush. The sound of his voice gave Kora goose bumps. “He master. I get food and bed for serve him, and sometimes coin.”
No one said another word. The only light still came from the torch Kora held, and she wondered how Rankush could see, ahead of the flame as he was, but then she realized his eyes must work differently than a human’s. Perhaps he could even see in total darkness. The thought made her uncomfortable, and she had no misgivings about leaving her guide when they reached the fork in the path Pikebash had mentioned. A string of the same statue lamps as before burst into life down the right-hand side, dazzling her eyes. Rankush stepped blindly back, nearly running Lanokas over. He grumbled, steadying himself, and squinting and blinking, said, “I leave here. You alone. Only humans take path here.”
He tromped back the way they had come without any sign of acknowledgment. Kora listened to him go and sank back against the wall.
“Trolls,” she said. “Trolls!”
Kansten grinned. “What’s next? Dragons?”
Kora groaned. “Don’t say that. Do not say that, don’t even think it.”
“We won’t find other creatures,” said Lanokas. He adjusted his sack across his shoulder. “The sorcerers’ tests don’t repeat that way. The ancient magicians coexisted with the trolls, which takes an open mind. Apparently the Councilors valued that.”
Kora, calmer now, asked, “Did your father never mention trolls?”
“Not to me. I had no idea they existed beyond children’s stories.”
Kansten said, “They’re not the stupid oafs we make them out to be, are they?”
Lanokas smiled. “They’re as intelligent as we are. The officer, his control of our language is impressive. We have the upper hand in hygiene though.”
Kora broke into a laugh that was a little hysterical; a concerned look from Kansten clammed her up. She took a deep breath, tried to reconcile herself to the fact that trolls were real, and considered the best thing to do was to put distance between herself and their caverns.
They took off down the path to the right. It had an upward incline, and Kora noticed the air begin to freshen. After maybe half a mile—it was hard to judge distance—they entered an airy, circular chamber where, straight ahead, set in the rock wall, was the largest wooden door Kora had ever seen. It was wide enough that, if open, four people with outspread arms could easily have walked through side by side. Chinks of light passed between the door and the wall, outlining its massive frame; there was no knob or handle of any kind. Carved six inches deep in the wood (six inches was only half the door’s thickness) were the ten numerical digits at eye level, each about the size of Kora’s palm.
Kora pushed the door, but it would not budge. Behind her she heard Kansten mutter, “Wonderful.”
“What?”
Lanokas said, “It’s another of those black tapestries.” Kora turned to find it just as he began to read.
You proved your pow’r in entering our caves.
Wisdom has taught you the value of pride.
In not rushing to attack your very life you saved;
Now your true worth two last tests will decide.
A full breadth of knowledge one needs inside our Hall;
History we deem to move you forward.
Ten digits appear in the stately wooden door.
Fill them in one proper, precise order.
First give the year of Herezoth’s union,
Next, of her great constitution;
Third, the number of blood kings to date,
Then the date of magic’s restitution.
When did we found our hallowed law courts,
And how many then did we robe?
After how many years did we alter that sum?
In which months will you find rulings slowed?
“Shit.” Kansten ran a hand through her hair. “Shit, what do we do now? I don’t know this stuff.”
“Me neither,” said Kora. “I don’t know any of this, except the year the dukedoms united. 1012.”
Lanokas said, “I had to study all of this for years on end. We’ll see how much I remember.”
He touched the interior of the “1” on the door. When he withdrew his hand, the space filled itself in with wood that moved forward from the carving’s depth, as though pushed from the other side. The number shined bright blue for a moment, then receded as though nothing had happened. The process repeated without change for the zero, the one again, and the two.
“The constitution,” said Kora, and Lanokas pressed the year 1297. “The kings of your line? How many have ruled?”
“My father was eighteenth.”
Kansten asked, “What’s magic’s res….?”
“The Restitution,” said Lanokas. “It was ages ago, before Herezoth was unified. A southern lord learned his wife had been unfaithful with a sorcerer, so he murdered them both and banished all the magicked from his lands, which were extensive, the size of a city. The handful of sorcerers affected complied. They went to surrounding regions and raised political support for their cause, instead of resisting physically. That’s what makes the story famous. The magic community made the injustice public knowledge, and the lord’s reputation fell among his peers, to the point that he had to take the sorcerers back. That was the Restitution, in 765. Or was it 769? No, sixty-five. I’m sure it was sixty-five.”
Kora held her breath. 1-8-7-6-…. Lanokas had two fingers within the “5” when he pulled them back as though something had bitten him. “It’s sixty-seven. 767.” And so it was.
“This is insane,” said Kansten. “What’s the point? Who knows that? For what?”
Lanokas, whose outstretched arm was shaking a bit, lowered his hand. “People like me know this, people highly educated. The magic court was classist, that’s what this is about. What’s next?”
Kora checked the tapestry. “When was the court founded?”
“That’s 1364.” Lanokas entered the numerals. “Next they want the number of councilors, right? It was twenty-seven. Nine from each province. They lowered it to nineteen five years before Hansrelto, but when exactly….?”
Kora smiled. “Hansrelto’s revolt was 1394. My parents were always fascinated by it. Do you know what months the court of magic met?”
“The opposite of the public courts. Which means they held half-sessions in…. February, it would be. February, March, October and November. 2-3-1-0-1-1.” Kora helped the prince keep his numbers straight, and he entered the rest of the code. When he pressed the final “1,” the carvings vanished and the door swung outward.
The sunlight, the wind, the smell of fresh snow: it was all a miracle, so much so that Kora ignored the cold. She felt like she had been trapped in the caverns for months, like she never would find a way out. Judging by the sun, she had spent three or four hours in the mountain.
Lanokas was first to step outside. Kora followed onto a thin, flat protrusion on the side of the mountain, which fell sheer away beneath them and rose unscalable at their backs. Twenty feet distant, on the side of an adjacent peak, was a second cliff with a marble platform somehow free of the white powder that smothered everything else. As the Leaguesmen watched, it shot a beam of thick golden light into the sky, a beacon to call them forward.
Kora, whose throat felt dry now she had left the cavern, stood with her back against the rock, as far from the cliff edge as she could manage. She suddenly wished she were back with Pikebash,
and shut her eyes because her vision had gone hazy. Lanokas and Kansten grabbed her hands. Gathering herself, she pictured the column of light and said, “Trasporte.”
“KORA!”
Kora crumpled, faint and feverish, where a moment before she had stood on the snowy ledge. She struggled to stay conscious, saw Kansten and Lanokas’s terrified faces swim in and out of focus until she gave it up and fell into oblivion. She came to with a cold, sticky face, and realized someone had rubbed snow on her forehead. Her sight grew clearer by the second, mostly by force of will. Her companions helped her up.
Kansten asked, “Are you all right?”
“I think so, I…. I don’t think magic will get us across. There’s an enchantment of some kind. It blocked me.”
Lanokas’s face was troubled, his cheeks and nose red from the chill, but he kept his voice firm, even cavalier. “How do we cross without the transport spell? Suggestions?”
“Without any spell,” Kora qualified. “I don’t know.”
Kansten started stomping her feet to keep warm. “Think,” she said. “This is the last test. The last test. We know it can be done, others have done it.” She froze with a jolt, then tromped over to the cliff edge. Kora’s head was spinning. Lanokas grew tense.
“What do you think you’re….?”
“This is the point closest to that ledge over there. To that light,” said Kansten. “I bet there’s a bridge.”
Kora’s vision blurred a second time. For an instant she thought she would faint again; Lanokas’s pinching hold on her shoulder only zapped her strength the more.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he told Kansten.
“There has to be a bridge. There’s no other way, don’t you see?”
“Get back here!” Kora pleaded. Her stomach felt like it had turned to mush. “Please get back….”
“If I fall, use that Mudar spell. You can’t use magic to cross the gap, but you can lift me back up, right?”
“Listen to me, I’m terrified of….”
Kora’s voice died as Kansten stepped off the ledge, neither floating in midair nor falling: a wooden board materialized beneath her. Lanokas relaxed his grip, and Kora massaged her upper arm, forcing herself to watch as Kansten walked the twenty feet to the cliff where the pillar of golden light still rose. With every step a new board appeared, while the old one vanished the moment her weight left it. She motioned for the others to join her. Kora stared at Lanokas, white as chalk.
“I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can.”
“Not this. Lanokas, I don’t like heights. I don’t like them. It’s bad enough just being out here, but to step out like that…. I’d rather there actually have been a dragon. I’m serious, I’ll faint and I’ll fall. I can’t do this.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I’ll pull you down with me!”
“We’re crossing together. Take a deep breath for me…. Good. A couple more. Now shut your eyes.” Kora did not. She was horribly aware of the wind tossing her hair, flailing her dress behind her, where Lanokas had maneuvered himself, his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to guide you. Just follow my direction.”
She looked back at him. “I’m telling you, I won’t make it!”
“Do you think I’d let you fall?”
“All right,” said Kora. “All right, I trust you.”
“Then close your eyes. I said I’ve got you.”
Kora squeezed her lids so tightly little dots popped out in front of her. She tried to ignore the gale, the skirt whipping at her knees, and to concentrate on the pressure Lanokas exerted, once again, on her shoulders.
The first step was the worst, absolute agony. Kora counted to ten before she took it. The second was not quite as bad, but she counted before that one too, and each one after. There was no way to know which shuffle of her feet pushed her body beyond the cliff. She could imagine she still stood on solid rock, and that way, at her own pace, she moved farther and farther from where she started until Lanokas announced, “We made it.”
He had guided her all they way to the opposite cliff. She smiled at him, and he clapped her on the back. Kansten stared at the marble dais, which was so close now its pillar of light looked solid gold.
“You should go first,” she told the sorceress. “When you’re ready.”
“We’re right behind you,” Lanokas offered.
Kora said, “That looks like a transport, we all know where to.”
“Take what time you need,” said the prince.
Kora’s pulse was rapid, her breathing shallow, and she knew that, in the best of circumstances, the change of altitude when she reached the Hall would work against her. To go now would risk passing out before Petroc. For ten minutes she sat, lost in speculation, while Kansten and Lanokas let her have her peace. Her hands were numb and shaking.
We’re here. We’re actually here! I didn’t think we’d make it this far. Whatever happens at the Hall, at least we got there.
Kora looked up at her friends. “Listen, Petroc’s crazy. I’m not exaggerating. The man should be in an asylum. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“We’ve handled each challenge up to this point,” said Lanokas. “We’ll do the same here. Are you ready?”
“I won’t feel ready if I stay here for days,” said Kora. “Let’s just do this.” She walked to the golden column, and taking one last moment to prepare herself, crossed into it.
445
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Petroc
The sensation was that of walking through a cascade of water, except the droplets ran off instead of sticking to Kora’s hair, skin, and clothes. Immediately, the expected shortness of breath overcame her. A caustic cold bit her face. She grabbed her chest and looked around; she was standing near the crest of one of the nearby mountains, perhaps the same mountain, with stone ruins rising in front of her. Lanokas appeared at her side, and then Kansten.
Kora had only seen the Hall from its interior. To gaze up at the structure and its accompanying library from outside wiped away any lingering effects of her walk between the cliffs; she felt something akin to reverence, though the sense of belonging she had known the first time Petroc pulled her here and which filled her again standing at the gates was too strong to be truly humble.
“This is it,” Kora whispered. “Watch your step. He could be out here, invisible.”
She led the others, picking her way over a crumbling stone fence covered with rubies placed to mimic blood red vines. Incredibly, or not so incredibly, considering the magic of the ancients, only one gem that she could see had been lost in the standing portion over the course of centuries. The barrier scaled, Kora walked straight into the Hall, through the corner that had collapsed when Hansrelto came to rile the court to rebellion. Hansrelto’s heir stood there now, in the chamber’s center, watching her plow through the rubble. His long, two-toned hair was tied at his neck as always. He wore the same robes as before, and swooped over as soon as he saw Lanokas and Kansten, his eyes so narrow they were slits. The Leaguesmen dropped their sacks, to defend themselves unburdened if an attack came straightaway.
None did. Petroc merely barked at Kora as he approached her in a huff, “I told you to come alone.”
“You wanted me to prove my strength. Well, these people are the greatest strength I have: will ever have,” she specified. “They’d never let me face Zalski without them, and I don’t agree to fight you that way.”
“Are they sorcerers?”
“Only the least barrier tested magic skill, you should know that.”
“The least meaningful, perhaps. Also the most effective. Still, I concede your point. As they’re here, they may do what they can.”
Kora tried to look stoic, but her heart felt light for the first time in days. She had not ruled out the possibility that Petroc might fly into a murderous rage when he saw she brought two companions. In fact, she rather expected as much. She realized now the man was more ecc
entric than insane, and decided to press her luck. She said, “This will be a friendly fight. A sorcerer like you can judge my abilities without anyone aiming to kill.”
“Well said, Miss Porteg. I wish you success. Nothing would please me more than to find you capable of destroying my brother’s torturer.”
Petroc wore the chain beneath his robes; Kora caught a glimpse of it from behind as he walked the Hall’s central colonnade. Meanwhile, Lanokas and Kansten lined up by either side of their more powerful ally. Kora stared at the sorcerer, considered trying to stun him then and there, but thought better of it. He was testing her integrity, had some protection or plan in place; no way would he give up the necklace that easily. When Petroc turned back to face her, she glared at him to prove she felt no fear. “Ladies first,” he offered.
“Estatua!”
Petroc said something unintelligible over Kora’s echo, using one incantation to block her spell with a large white shield and wiping her brain momentarily blank with a second. Lanokas shook her, which helped the effect pass, but that moment of befuddlement was time enough to prevent her deflecting the purple beam Petroc sent to her left, a beam like Zalski had shot outside the Landfill. The jet of light honed in on its target, though Kansten tried to dodge it, and lengthened to bind her the same way Zalski’s had when it made contact with that guardsman. The woman’s struggles only tightened the magical rope; she lost her balance, taken out of the duel before she even entered. As she fell, Lanokas used his telekinesis to sweep Petroc’s feet out from under him and send a chunk of broken pillar flying at his head. The slab of stone careened into the wall, almost collapsing another section of the ruins. The prince fell to his knees from his exertion, but though Petroc had easily redirected his missile, Kora used the precious seconds Lanokas had gained her to vanish Kansten’s bonds.
“A nice trick,” the sorcerer told Lanokas, clambering to his feet. “You exposed it too early. Lassmagico!”
The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 27