Kraw's Secret

by Deborah Cooke

  “And I think it is time for our ways to part,” Arkan said firmly. “If you’re so convinced that my children are evil, I doubt that you will be able to teach them effectively.”

  “I am not the problem in this situation!”

  “How long have they been gone?” Arkan asked, wanting to calculate how far they might have gone.

  “Perhaps half an hour,” the tutor admitted, her tone still irritated. “Fortunately, I ensured that the doors and gates were sealed before our lessons began this morning.”

  “So they must still be in the house?” There were still plenty of opportunities for trouble to be found.

  “They are hiding,” she said grimly. “I’ve been looking for them, without success.”

  Arkan tapped his desktop to secure his files, then left the counting room with purpose. The door was locked behind him with a touch. “Where have you looked?” he asked without glancing back.

  “The kitchen, the yard, their bedrooms, the playroom, the garage, the storeroom...”

  Arkan thought of the sewers. “The cellar?”

  Her expression was all the answer he needed. “I won’t do it anymore!” she shouted after him, but Arkan didn’t stop.

  “Speak to my mother, then. She hired you.”

  The tutor snorted but Arkan was racing down the stairs to the main floor of the house. The mess after the sewer adventure meant that he didn’t want a repetition. He stormed through the kitchen and down the stairs in the storeroom, activating a light on his way.

  The cellar appeared to be empty.

  But there was the clean scent of his children’s soap and the vessels on the worktable looked to be jumbled. He could even see a small handprint, disturbing the dust on one, but he didn’t let his gaze linger on it.

  They were here and they were hiding.

  Watching.

  It was time to change the rules of the game. Arkan bent down to examine the sewer grate as if it had been the reason for his arrival. He rattled it, but it was secured. He sighed with evident relief.

  “Thank Yarkella,” he said, as if he had only come to check the sewer. He straightened and returned to the stairs. “They’re not here,” he called, though he doubted the tutor had followed him. “Let’s check the garage. Tarun is fascinated by that new velocitor.” He climbed the stairs, extinguishing the light on his way, but didn’t step into the kitchen. Instead, he opened the door and closed it again, remaining in the shadows at the summit of the stairs. Because there was a bend in the stairs, they wouldn’t be able to see what he had done.

  His eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness and he was able to discern the gleam of the bottles in which the wine fermented. The silence didn’t last very long.

  “We fooled him!” Narjal whispered in triumph. “Now we have to finish before he comes back.”

  “We can’t move the table,” Tarun whispered. “It’s too heavy.”

  “We have to find a way. There’s a secret treasure there!”

  “We should have asked Pater to help.”

  “We can’t. It’s a secret.” Narjal’s tone made her opinion of her brother’s objections clear.

  “How can you even know it’s there if it’s a secret?”

  “I know,” Narjal insisted with such conviction that Arkan shivered. How could she know?

  “You could be wrong. You were before.”

  “We’ll never be sure unless we look!”

  “I want to see the velocitor.”

  “Be quiet and help, then I’ll take you to the velocitor.”

  A light illuminated far below Arkan. He guessed that Narjal had taken a handheld light source for her adventure and peeked to see that he was right. The children had their backs to him and the light shone upon the old wooden wall. Narjal had already moved most of the vessels aside and was kneeling on the old worktable. Tarun crouched behind her and she handed him the light.

  “Shine it there. That’s where the secret hiding place is.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I do!”

  Tarun did as instructed, and Narjal ran her hands over the wooden partition. Arkan sat on the steps to watch her, intrigued. He had been fascinated by that wall when he was a kid, too, though his father had told him to leave it alone.

  Was there a reason why?

  “Look!” Narjal sat back, triumphant, having found the perimeter of a door in the wall. She blew the dust out of the crack and ran her fingertip around the edge. “Just like in the book,” she whispered in awe.

  “What book?”

  “The one I found. The magic book.”

  Arkan frowned. There was no such thing as magic. There was deception and there was nonsense. They weren’t on Regalia with its superstitions and primitive thinking! He might have interjected, but decided to let Narjal’s venture fail first.

  “So, open it,” Tarun said.

  Narjal lifted her hands. She murmured something under her breath three times, then waited. Nothing happened, just as Arkan had expected. She dug at the perimeter of the door with her fingers, but it didn’t budge.

  Maybe it wasn’t even a door.

  “I knew we should have gone to the velocitor,” Tarun said with disgust and turned to jump from the table.

  Then Narjal gasped. Arkan gasped himself for the insignia of the dragon kings of Incendium appeared on the wooden panel. It looked to be drawn with fire and the flames crackled, glowing brilliant orange in the darkness. The flames faded and the insignia appeared to be branded on the door. A waft of smoke rose from the wood as Arkan heard a sizzle. Then the door opened and white mist spilled forth from the space behind it. Arkan thought he could see a pile of scrolls within it.

  Narjal reached a hand into the mist, both fearless and foolish.

  Arkan leaped down the stairs and snatched her up. She cried out in protest, and Tarun ran for the stairs. “I’m going to see the velocitor,” he said and scampered out of sight. No doubt, he thought Narjal was in trouble and wanted to avoid being implicated.

  “We have to look inside,” she insisted.

  “We do not,” Arkan said firmly. “What book did you find? Where is it?”

  “It’s in the library. It was hidden at the back of the shelves and I read it. It’s a spell book.”

  “You know there’s no such thing as magic.”

  His daughter was defiant. “I know there is. The spell worked.”

  Arkan tried a different tack. “You know that the practice of magic is illegal on Incendium.”

  “Because it works. Because that worked.” She gestured to the open door, which continued to spill white mist. The mist pooled on the floor of the cellar, as if it were heavy, and flowed toward the sewer grate in the floor. At the flick of her hand, the door slammed shut and Arkan watched its perimeter fade from view.

  Surely his daughter hadn’t made the door close from a distance with a gesture?

  Surely his daughter couldn’t have any powers?

  No, it was a coincidence. It had to be. The door had just closed at the same time.

  Narjal squirmed out of his grip and climbed back onto the worktable, trying to find the door again. He quickly saw that she couldn’t—and the murmuring of her spell yielded no results. He was relieved then, that his fears had been mistaken.

  She turned on him, outraged. “You did this, Pater! It’s hidden again because you don’t believe.”

  “Maybe it never really existed,” he said, noting how the mist had disappeared from view. “Maybe you imagined it.”

  Narjal’s expression turned stubborn. “Maybe I need to read more.”

  “No,” Arkan said. “You’re going to give me that book and you’re going to abandon this adventure.”

  “But...”

  “Or I’ll make you take twice as many lessons as before, in a locked room.”

  Her lips set. “I could get out of it.”

  Arkan bent down to look her in the eye. “If you put as much effort into your lessons as you do in evading them
, you’d be done early enough to play whatever games you wanted.”

  She smiled then, a sweet smile too much like Jalana’s, and wrinkled her nose. “It’s boring.”

  “Of course, it’s boring. It’s good training for becoming an adult.”

  “I don’t want to be an adult.”

  “I don’t like it much, either.” Arkan lifted her up and held her on his hip. “You’re getting bigger, though. I won’t be able to lift you soon.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Of course you will, Pater. You’re the strongest man of all.”

  “Hmm, flattery,” he teased. “You just don’t want to give me that book.”

  “I thought you might forget.”

  “Not a chance. We’ll get it now, then you’ll forget all of this nonsense.”

  “Does magic have to be nonsense?”

  “Yes, it does, because it is.” Arkan spoke with more confidence than he was feeling in this moment. What had happened with that door? He disliked that he couldn’t think of a rational explanation.

  Narjal sighed and Arkan knew the argument wasn’t over. If he had the book, though, and her spell didn’t work on the door in the cellar, then maybe she’d soon get bored with this particular adventure.

  He could only hope.

  In the meantime, he would go and talk to Uncle Kraw when he had a spare day, just in case there was something important about that hidden hiding place. That it had shown the insignia of the king for a moment indicated that Kraw was the most likely to know the truth.

  He doubted it was important, given that it was hidden in the cellar.

  Ignita watched the ShadowCaster with fascination. The creature divided itself into thousands if not millions of small dark dots, then moved to arrange images. It was like watching the vid, but with no color.

  It took them into the streets of Incendium city, which were seething with discontent. They had the perspective of someone walking through the city and Ignita shivered as the sense of unease and violence that permeated the vision. People muttered about new laws and injunctions, though none dared to express a complaint against King Flammos.

  They had learned the consequences of that quickly enough.

  She recalled her history lessons, the ones given to her as soon as she and Ouros had become betrothed. Her family believed that no bride should be unprepared for the world she would make her own, so she had crammed facts about Incendium’s history until she suspected she knew more of it than her intended. She remembered the cruelty of Flammos well, driven by his conviction that all conspired against him.

  The vision ducked into a tavern on the far side of Incendium, in the rough area beyond the star port. They entered the tavern, and Ignita’s eyes widened at the disreputable people there, the foreigners from other worlds, and the conspicuous consumption of stimulants both legal and illegal. She thought she could smell the filth of the place, and she saw credits in a dozen currencies being exchanged. The vision trailed into a back room, slipping through a barred door, where two men sat at a table.

  “Embron and Blazion,” she said without meaning to speak aloud.

  Ouros glanced at her. “The younger sons of Rubeo? The twins?”

  “There is an image in the archives.”

  He nodded, turning his attention back to the ShadowCaster’s display. The pair conferred, their heads bent together and their voices low. Ignita heard the words “rebellion,” “coup,” and “justice.”

  It seemed that Flammos’ conviction that his younger brothers had been conspiring against him was true. A servant entered the room, bringing a fresh pitcher of whatever brew the brothers consumed and a steaming platter of food. Another man entered and the brothers straightened, stepped forward to shake his hand.

  “A conspirator,” Ouros murmured.

  The servant left and the ShadowCaster’s vision followed him. He cast aside his apron and left the tavern, hastening to the palace. At the kitchen door, he murmured a word and was admitted, shown down a dark passageway, then thrust into a chamber where King Flammos awaited him. He was playing with a stack of credits. The man fell to his knees and began to speak in haste.

  “A traitor to the twin princes,” Ignita said softly.

  The vision swirled and they were at the starport, where a small vessel was being outfitted. It was isolated, at the end of a long row of empty gates. A woman with hair as white as snow strode down the corridor to the gate. She was young, despite the hue of her hair, dressed like a star captain and moved with confidence. She was not armed. There was a shimmer surrounding her, and Ignita watched with curiosity as she approached the guarded gate of the isolated vessel.

  She blew a kiss to each of the guards, but they remained impassive. She walked directly past them, along the gangplank, and onto the vessel, but they took no notice of her. They certainly didn’t stop her.

  “An intruder,” Ouros said.

  “A witch,” Ignita corrected, being more inclined to see sorcery than her husband.

  “There’s no such thing,” he chided.

  “Then how did she do that?”

  He glanced at her, frowned, then turned back to the display. “There is always a rational explanation, even if it’s not immediately evident.”

  Ignita held her tongue. They saw the twin princes then, being brought to the vessel in chains and shackles. They were forced aboard and the portal was secured, before the armed troops retreated.

  The ShadowCaster swirled again and showed King Flammos in his chamber, watching a massive but primitive display of the sky. It took up the better part of a wall, but the resolution was less than was typical now. Ignita noted that motion upon the screen was in increments instead of flowing smoothly. A solitary vessel left its gate and moved to the jump zone.

  “Presumably it was controlled remotely,” Ouros said.

  A distant voice counted down, then the vessel surged into the jump zone. There was a flash and it disappeared. King Flammos saluted the screen with his cup then drained it, his satisfaction more than clear.

  The dots moved, as if the focus shifted from the king to the shadows behind him. In the darkness, a man’s figure became clear, his features unfamiliar but the mark of the viceroy upon his uniform.

  “Of course, his viceroy attends him,” Ouros said and frowned. “Who is that, Kraw?”

  “Narkam, sir.”

  Ouros shrugged. “I don’t remember anything about him. I shall have to do some research.”

  The ShadowCaster became a whirlwind of tiny dots, and they spiraled down into the cylindrical vessel. They congealed into a single small black organism, one that looked like a dead millipede, and stilled.

  “That’s it?” Ouros cried when the creature didn’t move again. “But we know all that! What possible relevance does this have to the present and the future?” He growled and smoke emanated from his nostrils as he snatched up the cylinder and shook it. “What about Anguissa?” he roared, but the ShadowCaster remained still. Ouros turned to Ignita. “It must be about Narkam! That was the only detail I didn’t know.”

  But Ignita was more concerned that the viceroy suddenly slumped to the floor, his face pale. “Kraw! Ouros, something is wrong with Kraw!”

  Three

  After a visit to the velocitor and an argument with his mother, Arkan returned to the counting room to finish his work for the day. He had the so-called spell book that Narjal had found in the library, but a quick fan through it had revealed that the pages were all blank. Undoubtedly, a rational explanation for her experience would reveal itself.

  If Tarun had been older, he might have thought it a prank played by one sibling on the other. Maybe one of his nieces or nephews were responsible.

  The truth would come out, Arkan was sure of it.

  He settled at his desk and made to open his desktop display. Instead, he found himself reaching for a quill. He hadn’t written by hand in years, but had a curious urge to do as much. He found some paper in the desk and pulled out a clean white sheet.

/>   How strange. Why did he feel such a compulsion? It was another thing he couldn’t explain. He lifted the quill, rolling it in his hand as he recalled the feel of it. He touched it to the paper and words began to flow into the page, as quickly as he could write them.

  Arkan had no idea where they were coming from. He read them for the first time as he wrote them down, and as he wrote what proved to be a long message, his eyes widened in surprise.

  I, Narkam, viceroy of Incendium, sworn to the service of King Flammos, have committed treason and betrayed the trust of the king. Though I believe my actions to have been justified, I also recognize that they were illegal and subject to the most severe justice of the king. I also violated the sanctions against the use of magic on Incendium, for I saw no other means to save the kingdom. I was driven to this by my discovery that the king has done evil to protect his throne and though I know I have overstepped my bounds, I could do nothing else.

  In the Incendium year 208, King Rubeo gained his majority of eight-one years of age became King of Incendium. Rubeo had five children by his HeartKeeper, Bellica. Flammos was eldest and heir, born in 307. A daughter, Aurora, was born in 310 and a second daughter, Lustra, was born in 314. In 317, the queen delivered twin boys, Blazion and Embron.

  My service to the crown commenced in 554, and Aurora and Lustra were already dead. I knew they had died before coming of age. I did not know, until Prince Flammos confided in me one night after a drunken binge in Incendium city, that he had killed them with his own talons. He was proud of his deed and gloated of his cleverness as I helped him to his apartment. The hatred that spewed from him when he was unchecked was shocking. In the morning, he had no recollection of his confession, but I quietly confirmed several details over the following days, and was convinced of his guilt.

  The crime however was years in the past, and I had only his own confession as evidence. I continued to serve in silence, for I feared dismissal from my post—or worse—if I raised the question with King Rubeo. The prince appeared to embark upon a course of greater honor and less indulgence. I hoped he had learned from the past.