The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  “Mhmp.”

  The noise came again, and Jack suddenly realized it was the sound of Crope sobbing. Taking special care to pad his steps, Jack crept toward a post only paces behind the servant and the light source.

  A stone furnace blazed with golden light; its metal door flung open to provide air to fuel the flames. A shovel lay at the side, and to the side of that lay a large heap of logs, wood chips, and wood dust. Crope was on the opposite side, shoulders moving up and down, head shaking from side to side. As Jack watched, he reached inside his tunic and pulled out a wooden box. With hands gentle enough to cup kittens, Crope sorted through the contents of the box. After a moment, he pulled something out. From his position behind the beam, Jack couldn’t make out what it was. He saw Crope return the box to his tunic and then move toward the furnace door.

  It was then that Jack saw the white square in Crope’s hand. It was a letter—the bloodred daub of wax clearly marked it as such.

  “Mhmp.” Crope held out the letter at arm’s length and offered it up to the furnace.

  “Crope.” Jack was hardly aware he’d stepped forward and surprised to his very core that he’d spoken.

  Crope turned around. The letter was still in his hand, but the flames of the furnace had already begun to blacken the edges. Crope took one look at Jack and screamed. His hand whipped from the furnace to his face, and the letter ended up clamped over his eyes. “Go away. Leave Crope alone. Crope’s sorry.”

  “Crope it’s me, Jack.” Jack took another step forward so he was properly in the light.

  Screaming again, Crope moved his hands from his eyes to his ears. “Crope’s sorry. Crope meant to give Jack the letter. Didn’t know Jack was going to die.”

  Guessing that Crope thought he was a ghost, Jack leant forward and touched Crope’s arm. “I’m alive, Crope. I’m not a ghost.”

  Crope pulled away. “Master said burn the body—only burns ’em when they’re dead.”

  Baralis thought he was dead. Jack pushed the thought aside for a moment; he would think about that later. For now, he had to find out what was in the letter. Still holding out his arm, he said gently, “Here, touch me, Crope, I swear to you I’m not dead.”

  Crope eyed him suspiciously. “Ghost’s playing tricks on Crope.”

  “No tricks. Look.” Jack spit into his palm and held it out for Crope to examine. “Ghosts never spit—everyone knows that.”

  Edging forward, hands still clamped to his ears, Crope proceeded to examine the gob of spit. After a few moments of intense observation, he looked up at Jack’s face. “Jack not dead, then?”

  “No. Jack was alive, but very still.”

  “Cold, too. Very cold.”

  Jack shuddered. He never wanted to know what had happened after Baralis blasted him. Never. Gesturing toward the letter, he said, “Is that meant for me?”

  Crope’s hands came down from his ears. The letter shifted in his fingers as he presented it to Jack. “Jack’s letter. Lucy said only to give it to him if Larn was ever destroyed.”

  Lucy? A shiver started at the base of Jack’s spine and worked its way up to his skull. His heart pounded hard in his chest, Larn’s rhythm rang on every beat. “My mother gave you this letter?”

  Crope nodded. He thrust the letter out once more. “Lucy very sick, made Crope promise to keep the letter for Jack.” Crope’s lips widened into a tender smile. “Lucy gave Crope box. See.” He pulled out the box. Seabirds and seashells were etched upon its lid. “Said the birds reminded her of home. Crope likes birds.”

  Jack could barely hear what Crope was saying. Like a war drum, his heart was sounding an assault. “You’ve had this letter for over ten years?”

  Crope’s face blushed with pride. “I kept it as safe as Grammy’s teeth. Only lost it once—had to dig it out of the snow.”

  “And you were about to burn it because you thought I was dead?”

  Crope hung his head. “Crope’s sorry. Crope didn’t know.”

  Jack brought his hand up and took the letter. “Don’t be sorry, Crope. You’ve done what Lucy asked. She would have been pleased you kept it so long. And she would have thanked you—just like I’m doing now.”

  “Lucy was kind to Crope. She never called him names.”

  Jack nodded absently. As his fingers slid over the parchment, his mind slid back to the past. Ten years. Crope was the last person to see his mother alive. Jack remembered him emerging from her room, his hand tucked beneath his tunic. Was that when she gave him the letter? he wondered. The hour before she died?

  With shaking hands, he broke the seal. The wax was brittle, splintering into a dozen pieces that fell tinkling to the floor. Jack unfolded the paper and read the letter.

  Dear Jack,

  If you are reading this letter then Larn has been destroyed. If it is you that has brought about its fall, as I believe it will be, then I owe you the truth, as well as much, much more.

  I was born on Larn. Daughter to a servant girl and a priest, I grew up to womanhood on the isle. From as early as I can remember, I tended the seers with my own hands, washing, feeding, rubbing salve into their wounds. I thought nothing of it for years; to me the seers were just babbling madmen who were somehow less than human. Then the priests grew to trust me enough to let me tend the new seers; young men, whose minds had not yet been corrupted by the stone, and whose bodies were still strong and virile. It was a shock to discover that these seers were just like me; they could talk, laugh, cry. Be afraid.

  I grew to know these young men, and to love one in particular. He was a match for me in age, and we spent our days holding hands and talking of escape. We loved each other with the fierce, desperate passion of youth: nothing would come between us. Then one day, the red fever took me, and I was bedridden for fourteen days. When I eventually saw my love again, his mind had left him. His seering stone had robbed his sanity and the seering ropes had eaten his flesh. He didn’t recognize me. I was frantic, screaming, pulling at the ropes, cursing Larn. When I finally got the rope to loosen, it pulled away a portion of his skin, exposing the raw flesh beneath. After that I became hysterical. The priests tried to pull me away and I cursed them, swearing a terrible oath to destroy the island. As I spoke, the cavern began to shake. Someone thrust a rag into my mouth, and then I was beaten until I was senseless.

  When I awoke, I was in a dungeon, sentenced to die. I think the priests were afraid of me, afraid of my power and my curse. My mother helped me escape, and I was cast adrift on a skiff.

  A few days later, I was picked up by a passing ship and taken to Rorn. One of the sailors, a good man with a good heart, brought me to his house and cared for me. When the time came for me to leave, he gave me his savings and bid me luck and helped me on my way. Even now, the thought of his kindness warms me when I am cold.

  After I left Rorn I traveled as far away from the island as I could. I headed north and then west, changing my name and my appearance as I went. I finally arrived in the Four Kingdoms and became a chambermaid at Castle Harvell. Queen Arinalda favored me, and I was appointed as one of her personal servants.

  That was when I met the king. Lesketh was a tortured man back in those days; he and his wife were like strangers, torn apart by their inability to conceive a child. I was lonely, with no friends and no one to trust, and when King Lesketh stopped to talk to me in the gardens one day, I was more than flattered, I was grateful. Like everyone else, I heard rumors that the king had affairs with other women, but Lesketh was so kind and considerate with me that I thought nothing of it. Over a period of many months we became close. Lesketh would talk to me about the queen and his problems at court, and I would simply listen, hardly daring to speak. Occasionally I would ask him about faraway lands—my mind always on Larn—and he would take delight in telling me about all the politics of the day, even bringing scrolls and maps to show me.

  Gradually, there became more between us. We took to meeting in an old hunting lodge in the woods. And it was there, one
wet and gusty evening in late autumn, where Lesketh first showed me Marod’s Book of Words. Immeasurably old, with failed binding and fraying pages, it was, he said, one of the original four copies of the great scholar’s work.

  The moment I took the book in my hands, I felt something change inside me. My whole body began to tremble and a tight band of pressure wrapped around my forehead like a vise. The book seemed almost to open itself, and the moment the yellow page came into view, my eye fell upon the line that would forever change my life:

  The stones will be sundered, the temple will fall.

  Straightaway, I knew what it meant, and even before I’d finished the complete verse, I knew what I had to do. By predicting the downfall of Larn, Marod had offered me a chance to redeem my oath. All I had to do was to conceive a child whose destiny was to fulfill the prophecies in the verse:

  When men of honor lose sight of their cause

  When three bloods are savored in one day

  Two houses will meet in wedlock and wealth

  And what forms at the join is decay

  A man will come with neither father nor mother

  But sister as lover

  And stay the hand of the plague

  The stones will be sundered, the temple will fall

  The dark empire’s expansion will end at his call

  And only the fool knows the truth.

  From that day on, I set about begetting a child with the king. I knew he would never acknowledge the bastard son of a chambermaid, so the child would be without a father to claim him—just like the verse stated.

  Without mother would come later.

  The night you were conceived—for the one in the verse was and is you, Jack—the king stole down to the castle kitchens to see me. We made love in the dark shadows of the chambermaid’s corner, and when we had finished, I threw back the shutters to get some air. That was when I saw the sign in the sky: a star split in two and falling toward the earth. I knew then that the prophecy had been set in motion.

  Just as the king slipped away, Crope came down into the kitchens. Baralis had sent him to get some food and drink, and he passed the king on the stairs. I took the servant aside and begged him not to tell his master of what he had seen. Reluctantly, he agreed, and from that day on Crope and I became friends.

  I never saw the king again after that night. As soon as I knew I was pregnant, I gave up my position as a chambermaid and took on the lowliest job in the castle. As ashmaid, I never had to leave the kitchen, so there was no chance I would ever cross the king’s path again. I didn’t want him to know I was carrying his child.

  As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Two months later, the queen announced she was with child and the king fell in love with her all over again. He never made any attempt to contact me. I was sad for a while, but the prophecy had hold of me, and my life was no longer my own.

  The queen and I gave birth on the same day. As soon as I learnt that she had also borne a son, my mind returned to the star in the sky. Two fragments, two conceptions, two births.

  Years passed, and you grew from a baby to a boy, and I loved you more dearly than I could ever have imagined. Over time the prophecy became less important, and months went by when I never gave the verse more than a passing thought. Then one day I grew ill. It was as if Marod himself was tapping me on the shoulder, reminding me to finish what I had started. Right from the beginning, I didn’t take the medicines the physicians gave me—for the prophecy to be fulfilled I had to be gone from your life. It was the hardest decision I ever had to make, but the prophecy had a life of its own and if I had resisted it then, it would have taken me later without warning.

  As my strength was taken, I began to think I had made a terrible mistake: I had brought you into the world with a heavy burden on your back. I had used you, the prophecy had used you—you were nothing but a tool of fate. That was when I decided not to tell you about the verse before I died. I didn’t want Marod’s words ruling your life. I wanted to give you the chance for your destiny to be your own.

  So I wrote this letter. And gave it to Crope with instructions that he pass it on to you only if Larn was destroyed: an explanation if you ever needed one, a lifetime of blissful ignorance if you did not.

  I ask for your forgiveness, Jack, for I know the prophecy demands more from you than Larn alone, and as I lie here now, with my mind and body silently drifting away from me, I would change it if I could.

  I will love you always,

  Aneska

  Jack leant back against the wooden brace and slowly slid to the floor. Dropping the letter to his lap, he closed his eyes. The darkness was soft and welcoming, like a velvet-lined glove. There had been so much he hadn’t known.

  The hunting lodge—he and Melli had been there. He had picked up the copy of Marod’s Book of Words, held it in his hands, and read the note that dropped from its pages. The letter his mother never received, the farewell she thought had never been given. Jack shook his head. So much he had simply failed to see.

  So much he had misunderstood. His mother’s illness—he had thought she refused the medicines because she didn’t want to go on living. Now he knew the truth. And even as the old pain was taken away, it was replaced by something new. She had died because she thought the prophecy was hounding her into it. Afraid, in pain, and with no one to confide in, she had spurned the help of the physicians and surrendered to her fate.

  A hard lump rose in Jack’s throat. So much he had misjudged.

  From as early as he could remember he thought his father had abandoned him. Unwanted and unwelcome, he thought his birth had driven his father away. Yet now he had been told that his father never knew he existed—hadn’t even known his mother was pregnant. Everything had been hidden from the start.

  Jack brought up his knees and rested his head against them. How could he blame a man for not knowing he had a son? He had read the note from his father to his mother: Lesketh did not seem the sort of man who would have shunned a woman he cared for. She had shunned him.

  A lifetime’s worth of anger began to dissipate. Hate, which Jack had held so close for so long he was hardly aware of it, drained from him with every breath. He remembered Falk’s words about his own father: “He was just a man—not evil, not cunning, not deserving of punishment.” Jack had wanted to believe them at the time, now finally he could.

  His father wasn’t a callous monster who had deserted them. He was simply a man who had never known.

  Jack stood up. As the anger left him, a rigid sense of purpose rose up to fill the void. He felt strong and clear-headed. He knew everything now: where he came from, who his parents were, what he had to do and why. It didn’t matter that he was a bastard son of a king—that was nothing. The only thing that mattered was that he had finally learnt the truth.

  Looking up, he went to thank Crope one more time, but the giant servant was nowhere to be seen. Jack wasn’t really surprised: Crope’s first loyalty would always be to Baralis.

  Jack reached down into his boot and felt for his second knife. It was still there, strapped against the lining, pressing against his shin. Pulling it out, he unwrapped the linen-clad blade. Against all odds it had managed to keep its edge. Jack smiled. It was time to put Marod’s prophecy to rest.

  Thirty-six

  Darkness was the only thing left to him now. The world of light had passed beyond his reach.

  He sat in the center of a halo of shadow, his hands scrubbed raw and dripping blood. There was no cleaning them now. The taint was no longer on the skin, it was in it. In the skin, in the tissue. In the blood. Melliandra had fled, and with her had gone his one chance of redemption. Only the filthy nightmare world remained.

  He had taken neither food nor drink since she had escaped. Even his little white parcels of ivysh lay disregarded by the side of his bed. He couldn’t bring himself to take anything that might have been touched by a hand without a glove.

  Strange, but he felt a certain sense of expectancy now that
his head was clear. It was almost as if he were waiting for someone, or something, to come and try him like a god. Let them come, he thought negligently. He had nothing to fear from any man. Women were the blade sent to kill.

  Shifting his position upon the fanned-out cloak of silk, Kylock brought a skinless fingertip to his lips. It smelled and tasted of his mother. Long dead, but still present in the slow corruption of his flesh. Everything led back to her. Right from the first moment his life had been flawed: cradled in a womb that stank like a brothel, then sent to a nursemaid for suckling because the whore’s milk would not run. He didn’t have a chance. Character flowed from mother to son, and he was what she had been, and all her sins were his.

  People would have to pay—as people always did—for if he wasn’t a king by birthright, then he would make himself one by blood.

  The empire was young yet; it needed to be crafted by an iron will and stretched wide to span a continent. Already the darkness was closing in with its gifts. Kylock saw strategies before him like paintings in black and white: cities, towns, rivers, roadways, battlements, and men. Patterns emerged from the lines and curves—patterns of power and control. Just today word had come that Camlee had fallen. Now he saw that heading back toward Ness was a mistake: the city of Falport was ripe for the taking. Everyone was expecting his forces to turn north—surprise would be his greatest ally. The conquest of Falport would not only give him a fleet, it would position him to take the south.

  Suddenly Kylock felt the skin of his face flare into a blush. A warm ripple passed over him and a sense of imminent danger wetted his tongue. He was neither displeased nor afraid.

  Sitting in the dark, a soft smile playing at his lips, Kylock began to plan his next campaign: battalions to be readied, mercenaries to be recruited, alliances to be made and broken. He plotted a line of towns and villages to be destroyed in order to spread fear and prompt swift surrender, and made a mental note to have all women of childbearing age slaughtered on sight. No opposing army would be bred in his lifetime.