The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “And yet,” said Kora, “I’ve stayed here. Even when the king’s letter came. Even when Zac went off to Podrar, I sat here twiddling my thumbs. But Parker, things are different now. The situation’s shot to hell.”

  “And all it needs to get there is for you to show up and be recognized.”

  “I’m stealthy. And quick. Did I survive the Crimson League or not?”

  “Thanks to the League, you know things happen that stealth can’t plan for. Things no one can plan for.”

  “Which is why I know the king needs my help! He’d never ask it, not with my life at stake if I’m seen, but he needs me. Zac does too, though he’s still as self-assured as when he was twelve. So what if I’m being childish, or nostalgic? If a part of me’s selfish and just wants to breathe the air in Herezoth again? It doesn’t change the fact that Zac’s life’s in danger, that Rexson’s reign is close to turmoil. My presence might help set things straight.”

  Parker said, “That’s mighty arrogant, I think.”

  “Really? Arrogant? What other sorcerer to even out the numbers would you send? I’d love to know. I’ll go grovel at their feet, if that’s what it takes to get them on Rexson’s side.”

  “Uncalled for,” said Parker. Kora would not back down.

  “This is about math. Two equals two. Two against one equals Zac in real trouble. You can add, can’t you? Your six-year-old son can add.”

  “And what would you have me tell my six-year-old when he wakes up and his mother’s gone the way of a rain puddle on a steamy summer day?”

  That stopped Kora short. She bit her lip, unable to find her voice, wishing she weren’t having this conversation before her mother.

  “Parker, I don’t want to leave the kids, or you.” She kissed her husband to prove her point, hoping the act might soothe her aching chest. It didn’t. His eyes bore into hers. “I don’t want to leave, I need you to hear me say that.”

  Parker returned her kiss. Bless him, he understood. He didn’t blame her. Relief made her voice shake. With her mother present she couldn’t say how much she loved him, how he had been a part of every moment of peace she’d known in the last fifteen years. She told him instead, “I swear I’m coming back, and in one piece, as soon as I possibly can. I’m just worried that if I don’t go, Zac might not make it back at all.”

  “Put more faith in your brother,” said Parker. “He knows a fair bit about the world, that boy.”

  “About the world, perhaps. He doesn’t know himself, his limitations.”

  Kora’s eyes were threatening to leave a puddle on the floor. Ilana got up and walked her to the chair at the loom, an arm around her shoulders. She asked her daughter as she seated her, “You feel you have to do this?”

  Kora swallowed. “The old days,” she said, “they taught me to trust my gut. My instincts. And my gut right now is all twisted up, because I’m not supposed to be here. Parker, tell me you understand. Tell the kids I wasn’t feeling well, and I’ll be back in a few days, when I’m better. Mother….”

  “I can watch the kids, all of them. Rexson’s too. Joslyn will help, and the August girl, so don’t you worry about that. Don’t you worry one bit.”

  Kora nodded her thanks and turned to Parker. She reached out for him to take her hand, because she needed reassurance, and he not only squeezed her fingers, he pointed to her stomach.

  “You can’t ignore something gnawing in your gut. Those things’ll eat right through you. If you have to go, you have to go. I understand that’s how it is. I love Herezoth as much as you do. I respect what the king’s done there, and I sure don’t want something to happen to Zac. I happen to think they’ll all be fine without you, every one of them, but if you have to go….”

  “I’ll be back in a week, at the latest. No matter what.”

  “I know you will,” Parker said.

  Bennie asked, “What timeframe did you set yourself?” The question jolted Kora back to her surroundings, to the tiny room, to the friend she had not seen in years. The sorceress said a week.

  “I can’t believe you came. You’re completely mad.”

  “Enough of that, Bennie. Just get me up to date.”

  “No,” the inn worker protested. “No, I’m not telling you anything, because you’re moseying back home. Where you’re safe. If you want to sneak around Yangerton with a death sentence on your head, that’s your business, but I won’t support it. I won’t help you commit suicide after you stopped me that night. I’ll tell Zacry you’re here, or Rexson. They’ll make you go back.”

  “Did I tell a soul all those years ago when I found you on watch with a dagger to your wrists? Bennie, listen to me, their side has two sorcerers. At least two. Vane’s tucked away in the Palace, where he should be. He’s too young for this. Don’t you think we should have two casters?”

  “Of course I want even numbers! Hang it all, I want every just advantage we….”

  “Then help me help the king!”

  Bennie nodded slowly. Reluctantly. She patted the mattress to tell Kora to sit beside her, and began, “When Zacry came back this afternoon, he brought us all to Yangerton. I had a wig, like we used to wear.”

  A blonde wig, with loose curls at the bottom. It itched something terrible, but Bennie couldn’t scratch her head without dislodging it. A pair of non-corrective spectacles and a grungy hat with flowers stuck on the rim completed her disguise. She and Gratton, who was almost unrecognizable in civilian dress, went to Yangerton’s southernmost neighborhood, where the Fist’s innocent fourth officer, Crale Bendit, lived in a cottage. Their job was to go from inn to inn in the area and snoop around, or ask questions to figure out if Arbora had been there.

  The first stop was no place Bendelof or any self-respecting person would generally set foot. That made it a perfect hideout for the Fist. The keeper was an ex-con known to gloat about the eight years he’d served for nearly killing a guest who tried to cheat him out of pay for three months’ lodging. He had struck the man with a fire iron, and told the story mainly to warn customers not to try similar shenanigans. To glance at his clientele, Bennie couldn’t blame him. All kinds of dirty, unsavory types filled the place: gamblers drunk, rolling dice, with scars across their faces and arms where they had been sliced with daggers; a group of men wearing tattered, oversized cloaks and speaking in low voices, no doubt using the noise the gamblers made as cover to plan something illegal; three beggars, spending the day’s earnings on a gallon of wine that seemed to disappear before Bendelof’s eyes; two prostitutes, trying to convince the beggars to take them home instead of buying more drink. Gratton hollered for a beer and kept Bennie close.

  Rexson had warned her Gratton was fond of alcohol, but he gave no hint that drinking had ever impacted the man’s career and never directed her not to let him taste ale. They needed to drink, at this of all places, or draw unwanted attention, so Bennie gave the guardsman’s order of two pints no second thought. The pair took a table, sticky with some spilled liquid or other, near the kitchen so they could eavesdrop on the conversation inside; the swinging doors did little to keep noise in, or the smell of a roast sizzling to the point of being burnt.

  “How many sandwiches, Paulie? Three or four?”

  “Four, woman!” growled the innkeeper. “They want four. Are you deaf? What’s so hard about that?”

  “Why do they want four of ‘em? They’re just three.”

  “Let ‘em throw the extra one out the window for all I care! If they pay for it….”

  “I guess the gent wants two,” said the woman. Bennie assumed she was Paulie’s wife or lover, but had no way to know who she was. Paulie, the infamous innkeeper, spoke again.

  “Damn nuisance he is. Did you see the way he looked at me when he came in? Like a puppy I was about to drown. Why should he be chicken around me?”

  The woman sounded exasperated. “You can’t brag to everyone about that scoundrel you clocked on the head and not expect news to get around.”

  “Wh
at’d I ever do to this guy, eh? If he heard of me and got spooked, why’d he come? And the gal he had with him, the young one, her nose was so high in the air I could’ve counted her boogers. Who’s she to judge us? Did you hear her talk? The thickest fisherman’s accent I ever heard. If she thinks she’s above us….”

  “Their silver’s as good as anyone’s, you fool! Keep your voice down. You want them to hear you and vamoose? What’ll we do with their food, eh? We’ll eat the cost of it!”

  “They won’t hear. They shut themselves in their room. Miss High and Mighty’s above socializing with our crowd.”

  Bennie and Gratton’s eyes met. The guardsman whispered, “We’ll have our drinks. Keep up appearances. Then you’ll let the others know we found them. I’ll stay in case they leave, so I can follow.”

  The fake blonde nodded solemnly. Professionally. Gratton gave her a wry smile and observed, “You know, for the lady you are, you’re quite at ease here.”

  “I’m not as sheltered as I look.”

  “I know your training. Heard all about Ranler. I guess your teacher was a no-frills, direct kind of individual, meaning no disrespect.”

  “If you meant no disrespect, you wouldn’t clarify.”

  Gratton cleared his throat. Their beers came in cloudy glasses. Bennie didn’t touch hers, while Gratton emptied half of his in one gulp. “You don’t seem shocked we found them this easily.”

  “Me and my friends have always had a way of finding what we need. And of being found, when that’s what’s in order. I guess I took it for granted we’d get lucky at some point, if luck’s what you want to call it.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I call it providence.” Gratton downed most of what remained of his beer, and Bennie said, “I could be wrong, I guess, but I’ve always come across what I needed to get by. And the awful things, the evil I’ve seen, I’ve also seen good worked through them somehow.”

  “So all the deaths….”

  “They were tragedies. But they weren’t in vain, not one of them.”

  Gratton lowered his voice, but the disparaging note in it was clear. “Not one, eh? Not a single one? What about that duke’s son, Crescenton’s son? The one Rexson named his kid after?”

  “Neslan,” muttered Bennie.

  “Rexson’s told me how he died: needlessly, at the very end, because he opened his damn mouth against Zalski. What good came from that?”

  “Besides Zalski’s death, because the way Zalski killed him turned his general to our side? The king leaned heavily on Neslan. Too heavily. If he’d had Neslan to advise him when he took power, he never would have come into his own, never come to trust his own instincts and inclinations. I believe that.”

  “Because it fits into your worldview, perhaps?”

  “That’s possible, I can’t deny it. I certainly can’t prove you wrong. All I can say is that I feel none of them died in vain, even Neslan. Especially Neslan. Leaving the king out of it, he’d never have forgiven himself if he hadn’t challenged Zalski: not the way, looking back, it’s so clear how he loved Laskenay.

  “Gratton, I can’t help but judge that some good came from each and every death, and I’ve always chalked that up to something greater than dumb luck. You don’t toss tails twenty times in a row, you see? Well, every death contributed to our final victory, to Herezoth’s eventual stability. Every one, the same result, like tails after tails after tails, and there….” Bennie swallowed. Her throat went dry. She eyed her beer, but no, the glass was too filthy. “There were a lot of deaths.”

  “Which one gets to you the most?”

  “A girl I grew up with. Her name was Kansten, Kansten Carder. Zalski’s wife sent her through a window. That’s how they killed her, but I, I think Kansten wanted that. They only needed one prisoner, so they were bound to kill any extras, and Kansten wasn’t cut out for confinement.”

  She wouldn’t have squealed, I’ll never think that of her. But she wouldn’t have been in a state to comfort Zac.

  Gratton frowned. “They captured multiple people when they took Kansten? Who’d they take hostage, then? Anyone I know?”

  Bennie coughed. Forget the grime, she thought, and took a swig of ale.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s none of your business who it was.”

  “I guess it isn’t,” Gratton conceded. He raised an eyebrow. “You’ll want to be going. You remember where we left the others?”

  “Sure do.”

  Bennie pushed her beer to him. He downed it, she noted, as she walked to the door trying not to draw eyes. What she failed to notice, and later regretted, was the guardsman calling the keeper over with an impatient wave when the latter emerged from the kitchen with four plates of sandwiches. Gratton asked for a glass of whatever liquor was cheap: cheap and plentiful.

  “When I got back,” Bennie told Kora, “he was close to passing out. Hayden, Zac, the king, they were with me. We found out what room the Fist had taken, and I got us in there. It wasn’t hard. Everyone was pretty drunk in that place, the keeper too. I guess Arbora and Ursa couldn’t stand the racket all those idiots were making, because they’d left. Without Gratton seeing. Lanokas wasn’t happy.”

  “I guess he wasn’t,” said Kora. “In Gratton’s defense, isn’t Arbora a sorceress? And Dorane casts too. They could have transported from their room, and Gratton would never know.”

  “Don’t defend him! He’s got no excuse. He could have stationed himself by the lodgings, tried to listen. Maybe he would have heard where they went off to. As it is….”

  “We have no idea,” Kora finished. “Fantastic.”

  Bennie crossed her arms. “There’s no we here.”

  “I’m helping and that’s that.”

  “Man alive! You’re as stubborn as Kansten was, just as stubborn. How you two were friends I’ll never know. I’m shocked you didn’t burn the Landfill down on top of each other before Zalski beat you to it.”

  “Who cares about Zalski anymore? And what’s the deal with Lanokas? Zac mentioned he wasn’t doing well, that he did something to Vane.”

  “He stopped Vane growing complacent about his magic. He meant no harm.”

  “The way Menikas ‘saved my life’ by gagging me? Something harmless like that?”

  Rexson’s brother had once attacked Kora, to prevent her endangering herself by transporting to the Crimson League’s headquarters while Zalski was invading them. Bennie claimed, “I didn’t say I approved the king’s methods.”

  “What’s that gleam in your eye? I’m not in love with him, Bennie. That’s not why I’m here. For God’s sake, I have five kids with Parker. Just tell me, is he cracking?”

  “I thought he might be. Then Gratton gave him a talking to, and he seemed better, but now, what with Gratton’s drunken lunacy, I don’t know. I really can’t say. This might sound odd, but I’m more worried about the guardsman. Your brother warned me about him after tonight’s fiasco. We know there’s a spy, and Zac thinks it could be him.”

  “Gratton’s the spy?”

  Bennie blanched. “I hope not. I hope to God not, because I, I’ve grown fond of him. He’s been kind to me, gone out of his way to do that: which means he could be using me. I don’t think he’s any traitor, but there’s nothing to prove him loyal. He’d have known the princes’ routine, so he could have told the Fist, and tonight, his drinking.... It just doesn’t make sense to me, not unless it was a ploy, a way to explain how the Fist left the inn with him sitting in the building. He wasn’t too pleased when the king sent us there in the first place. I want to trust him, but I don’t know if I should. Remember what happened the last time a spy caused us trouble? He led Zalski straight to headquarters.”

  “Mouser Rone,” said Kora. “Heard his full name only once, but I’ll never forget it. Bennie, what does Lanokas say about Gratton?”

  “I’m too chicken to tell him my fears. I convinced Zac to keep quiet too, at least for now. He hasn’t liked Gratton fro
m the start. They rub each other the wrong way, so anything he says against the man, the king won’t take it seriously. And then, what if we’re wrong? What if Gratton’s as loyal as a lap dog? Sure, he looks like a wolf, but…. And there’s the king to consider too, Kora. I don’t know how he’d take the news, not on top of everything else. Gratton’s his crutch. He leans on him, and I can’t take that support away. Not without proof.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Kora assured her.

  “Man alive, I didn’t realize how much I miss you! You shouldn’t be here, you really shouldn’t, but it’s wonderful to catch up face to face. Letters are nice, but they’re not the same, and Zac…. He sure is something, your brother. Made quite a name for himself. Me, I think I’ll always see him as a twelve-year-old.”

  Kora smiled. “Me too.”

  “He did you and Laskenay proud when we rescued those children. He had both that Arbora woman and Dorane shooting spells at him, and he deflected them all. It’s a good thing, too. I don’t know what half of them would’ve done. He’s very…. He’s confident in his magic, Kora. More than Laskenay was, more even than you. The only comparison I can make—and I, I don’t mean any offense—it was almost like watching Zalski again. Not that Zac uses the magic he did, but they’re not unlike in build, or complexion. Their hair’s the same color, and they carry themselves the same way. Zalski, he was assertive. You have to give him that. He wasn’t afraid to take risks, and Zac’s not either.”

  “Zac never was,” said Kora. “That doesn’t make him like Zalski. Zac takes calculated risks.” Bennie raised an eyebrow. “For worthy causes. Just causes, that’s the difference.”

  “You don’t think Zalski justified everything he did? Every execution? He always thought he was in the right.”

  “But he wasn’t. How can you say…? My brother’s nothing like that man.”

  “Kora, I….”

  “For God’s sake, Bennie!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. You know I don’t think your brother could ever….”