The Vengekeep Prophecies

by Brian Farrey

  It was family tradition to take a souvenir from extraspecial heists. Something small and memorable. As it was my first burglary, I wanted something great.

  I poked through Jorn’s bureau, under his bed, and in his closet, but nothing really grabbed my attention. I was about to give up when I spotted the small, silver stamp on his bedside table, the one he used to seal his letters.

  Now that was a souvenir. Not the stamp itself but with a few drops of wax, I could make an impression of Jorn’s crest from the stamp. Like an autographed memento of my first mark.

  I grabbed the candle next to the stamp. While Da insisted on never using light during a burglary, I figured it wouldn’t hurt this once, seeing as the entire town was several blocks away at the Festival and I needed the wax.

  I pulled a small tinderbox from inside my boot and went to strike the flint. But as I brushed my hands together, the flint and stone flew from my clumsy fingers, shooting a single spark that leaped onto the curtains of Jorn’s bed. The very old, antique, and highly flammable curtains.

  I fell back as, in a flash, the entire canopy erupted in flame. I froze, watching the fire rise higher and higher until it had ignited the ceiling. Waves of fire roiled down the walls, inching toward me.

  “Da!” I called out. And realized my mistake too late.

  The bedroom door shimmered with golden light for a moment before slamming shut. I reached out, twisting the knob, but the magical yellstop seal—designed to trigger with any loud noise—held tight. No doubt, every door in the house was now sealed.

  “Jaxter!” I heard Da’s muffled cry from beyond the door. “I’m trapped in the library.”

  By now, black smoke had forced me to my knees as the heat of the approaching wall of fire blistered the paint on the door. Gasping for air, I dug through my pouches for the amberberry pollen and oskaflower honey. Tears filled my eyes as I raced to mix the ingredients that would neutralize the magical lock. If it would neutralize something as powerful as a yellstop charm. I’d never tried before.

  Once I had a tiny ball of paste, I rubbed it on the lock and prayed. With a yank, I was able to pull the door open and stumble out, just as the flaming ceiling collapsed in the bedroom. Smoke quickly filled the hall as the fire started to burn through the walls. Crawling to the library door, where I could hear Da pounding, I smeared what was left of the paste from the palm of my hand on the door lock and released Da. His eyes widened as he spotted the fire.

  “Come on!” he cried, slinging my arm over his shoulder and helping me down the stairs. In the distance, I heard bells. Someone had alerted the fire brigade.

  By the time we got downstairs, the fire had spread to the ground floor. We yanked at the front door, but the yellstop charm held it tight.

  “Jaxter …” Da began, but I shook my head.

  “I used the last of the honey.” Without my blue paste, there was no way to counter the yellstop charm.

  Looking around, Da spotted a brass coat rack. We picked it up and started battering at the front door. Once … twice … On the third heave, the door flew off its hinges and we fell out into the street, crawling as fast as we could across the cobblestones, away from the flaming house.

  Only to find the entire population of Vengekeep in the street just outside, with Castellan Jorn at the head of the pack, shaking so furiously he couldn’t speak. Instead, he pointed a trembling finger at me and Da. Captain Aronas and two of the stateguard stepped forward and pulled us to our feet.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Aronas asked, binding my hands behind my back.

  “Um …” I said sheepishly, “Enk vessara, enk talmin?”

  2

  The Tapestry

  “A stranger is just a mark you haven’t bilked yet.”

  —Ancient par-Goblin proverb

  Da and I spent the night in the Grimjinx summer home. Known to most as the Vengekeep gaol.

  Everyone in the family had spent at least a little time there for various accusations. Usually only for as long as it took for the stateguard to realize they didn’t have enough evidence to make charges stick. But, covered in ash and soot and seen leaving the Castellan’s burning house by hundreds of witnesses … well, it seemed like the Grimjinx knack for avoiding prosecution was over.

  And it was all my fault.

  “I’m sorry, Da,” I finally said. We’d been sitting for hours, Da quietly contemplating the ceiling and me feeling horrible the entire time.

  Da waved it away. “It’s my fault, Jaxter. I picked the target. I thought if we robbed anyone less than the Castellan, you’d think I didn’t have total confidence in your abilities.”

  “I bet you didn’t burn down the first house you burgled.”

  “True, but I never would have been able to beat a magical lock. We all have our talents, Jaxter. And that’s yours. Don’t you forget it.”

  It was my unique contribution to our heists. Da could sneak into a house, steal a painting, and be out in five minutes flat. Ma’s forgery of that painting could fool people for years. Aubrin’s sleight of hand skills were the best in the family. Me, my clumsiness prevented me from perfecting the skills that made the Grimjinx clan infamous. Kept me from being a true thief.

  All that changed a year ago when Nanni moved in with us and gave me The Kolohendriseenax Formulary. It detailed twelve magic-resistant herbs and plants deemed “the essentials of nature” and how they could be used to negate low-level magic. From there, I read more and more books, each adding to my knowledge of how to beat magic through natural means. Da called it “invaluable backup support” when we did our cons. It came in handy from time to time.

  A loud clang and squeak, and the steel door leading into the gaol swung open. Captain Aronas, looking happier than I’d ever seen, sauntered into the room.

  “Burglary!” he said, brandishing the flute they’d found on Da when searching us. “Willful destruction of property! Arson! The best list of charges I’ve ever seen filed against the Grimjinxes. This time, you can’t weasel your way out.”

  Da didn’t approve. “Willful destruction and arson? Seems a bit redundant, don’t you think? And not at all original.”

  Aronas leaned against the bars that separated us and shook his head. “Make all the jokes you want, Grimjinx. As we speak, Castellan Jorn is in his office, drawing up the papers of exile. When he’s done, you and your little band of thieves will have an hour to pack up and remove yourselves from Vengekeep. If any Grimjinx dares enter this valley again after today, you’ll spend the rest of your life in Umbramore Tower.”

  “Exiled?” I asked, excitement coloring my voice. “You hear that, Da? We finally get to take that tour of the Five Provinces you always promised the family.”

  We linked arms and did a celebratory dance as Aronas fumed, but inside, my stomach fell. I’d gotten the family exiled. With the Grimjinx reputation, the chances of finding another town-state that would let us set up roost were slim at best.

  Our celebration stopped as Aronas’s lieutenant, a tall, wingless Aviard with a gray feather beard and talons for fingers, entered with a grave look in his yellow eyes. Da tugged lightly on his left ear—a family signal to pay attention—and stared knowingly as the Aviard whispered to the Captain.

  “What?” Aronas spat in disbelief.

  “Something the matter?” Da asked in a voice so innocent no one was buying it.

  Aronas opened our cell with the key at his belt and stepped aside. “By order of the town-state council, you’re summoned to the Viewing Room.”

  “A summons?” Da said, as he stepped out of the cell. “Well, now, that’s a far cry from an order of exile, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”

  We followed as Aronas, grumbling all the way, escorted us out of the gaol and into the streets of Vengekeep. I half expected to be pelted with rotten vegetables, or at least receive murderous glares. But as we walked through town, the looks we got were … odd. Not angry like last night, when my accidental fire brought the Festival
to an unwelcome end. Now they looked at us pensively, like they were trying to figure us out. It was creepy.

  Nearly five centuries old, the town-state hall was the oldest building in Vengekeep. Most days, it was packed with stern-looking officials, who did boring things like make laws and, even worse, enforce them. As we turned the corner to find the hall looming ahead, I felt a lump in my throat to see workers clearing away the pile of ash and scorched debris nearby, all that remained of the Castellan’s house.

  Once inside the hall, Aronas led us down a long, pillared corridor to the Viewing Room, one of the most sacred locations in the town-state. It was fairly small, with walls of speckled green marble and a thick glass skylight that provided the room’s only natural light.

  To one side, I saw a group of three women and a man, dressed in the blue-and-green robes that marked them as town-state council scholars. They spoke in hushed tones to one another and stopped dead when we entered. Da and I were ushered to the center of the room, but before we could ask what was happening, we heard a clamor from down the hall.

  “Watch your hands!” The unmistakable shrill of my grandmother’s voice echoed across the room. A moment later, the rest of our family—Ma, Nanni, and Aubrin—was escorted in by two stateguards.

  Nanni was slapping at one guard’s hands. “I’m seventy years old! Don’t you know I’m fragile?” To demonstrate, she swung her arm up and struck the guard’s helmet.

  Ma swept into the room and, like Da, didn’t seem nearly as perplexed as I was at this new development. She went straight to the scholars.

  “Hello,” she sang brightly. “Allia Grimjinx. I believe you know my husband, Ona.”

  Da waved. When the scholars didn’t respond, Ma, Nanni, and Aubrin joined me and Da. Ma kissed us both.

  “Summons?” Da asked quietly.

  “Imagine my shock,” Ma said, sounding anything but shocked.

  “I’ll try.”

  Aubrin and I shared a squint. We knew our parents. What were they up to?

  Castellan Jorn entered next, hunched over, cane in hand, in the same splendid azure and black robes of a provincial magistrate that he’d worn last night. It looked like he’d slept in them. Which, of course, he had, seeing as I’d torched his house and everything he owned. They were probably all the clothes he had in the world right now. My ears burning, I gazed at the floor.

  Jorn appeared exhausted. In gaol, I’d heard the guards talking. Because of the Festival, there were no vacancies at the inns. Jorn had been forced to spend the night in the guest room of the widow Bellatin, who most likely kept the Castellan up all night with stories about her long-dead husband. Our night in gaol was looking better and better.

  If Jorn could have killed us with a look, the one on his face would have done the job twenty times over. He peeled his gaze away from us long enough to consult with the scholars in a raspy whisper. He was clearly angry, and from their body language, the scholars were doing their best to convince him of something.

  Finally, Jorn snorted, turned, and hobbled over to us, his face a mask of contempt.

  “I was nearly rid of you,” he snarled. “I had the order of exile drafted and ready to sign. So close …”

  He pivoted on one foot to face the room’s centerpiece—indeed, the very reason for the room’s existence. A large tapestry, as tall as Ma and three times as wide, woven with threads of varying brown shades, hung from a shiny copper frame, suspended from the ceiling by thick cables. Jorn regarded the tapestry for a moment, then spoke over his shoulder to Da and me.

  “It’s a shame you missed the Unveiling last night. I’m sure you’ll agree the Twins had a very interesting message for us this year.”

  He motioned with his cane to the tapestry. I looked to where he was pointing, but Ma and Da, doing their best to appear deeply interested in what the Castellan had to say, never took their eyes off the portly man.

  Everyone in Vengekeep knew the story of the Twins. Powerful seers who lived almost five hundred years ago, the Twins had visions of Vengekeep’s future that they wove into a series of tapestries. They wove a tapestry a day on enchanted looms, each tapestry representing a forthcoming year. And because the Palatinate believed it was dangerous to know the future too far in advance, the tapestries were sealed in glass tubes, marked with the corresponding year, and locked away in the catacombs beneath the town-state hall.

  Every new year, the town-state threw a massive festival in honor of the Twins. At the end of the weeklong celebration, the Castellan and our town-state mage would unlock that year’s tapestry, unveil it to the city, and then hang it in the Viewing Room for all to see. Scholars would spend hours interpreting it and then prescribe a course of action to the Castellan.

  When I was eight, the tapestry warned of a drought, allowing the town-state council to create water reservoirs. In the nearly five hundred years that Vengekeep had been relying on the tapestries for guidance, they’d often predicted as much good as they did bad and most of the bad they predicted was avoided. And none of it was ever terribly bad.

  Until now.

  I studied this year’s tapestry. It was a familiar mix of pictograms and sparsely worded passages. And while I was no scholar, even I could tell that Vengekeep’s future looked bleak. Crudely rendered dead animals suggested some sort of livestock plague. Stick figure people were covered in flames. Squiggles that looked suspiciously like monstrous vessapedes burst from the fountain near Hogar Square. Most disturbing, a flock of winged skeletal creatures dominated most of the tapestry. They looked like nothing I’d ever seen: massive, clawed, and fanged. In the pictogram, they seemed to be tearing the town clock tower to shreds. Other disasters—heavy rains, earthquakes—were mentioned in brief sentences around the ornately decorated borders. In the center of it all sat four additional stick figures, standing at all points of a four-pointed star.

  “What do you think of that?” Jorn demanded, tapping the tapestry with his cane.

  “I think we were safer back in gaol,” I said, wide-eyed. I thought I heard Nanni snicker.

  Ma stared intently at the weaving, taking it all in. “What could it mean, Castellan?”

  Jorn approached the tapestry and pointed to the words directly underneath the four stick people near the star that read, “The star-marked family alone shall be the salvation of Vengekeep.”

  As the words sank in, a chill tickled my toes. I stared so hard at the passage that I’d missed Jorn sidling up beside me. He yanked at my vest and shirt, exposing my right shoulder. There, small and red, was a four-point star—the Grimjinx family birthmark I shared with Da, Nanni, and Aubrin. Everyone in town knew about it.

  One of the scholars—a woman with salt-and-pepper hair—stepped forward. “The four of us are in agreement. The tapestry portends a disastrous year for our town-state. A year where the Twins indicate your presence is vital to Vengekeep’s survival.”

  “I wanted to be rid of you once and for all,” Jorn said, his face so near I could smell scorchcake on his breath, “but I’m forced to allow you to stay.”

  “Stay?” Da asked, as though it was the most ludicrous suggestion ever. “I was just warming to the idea of exile. A nice traveling holiday. A chance to see the waterfalls at Azagan Cliffs …”

  “And I hear the mesas at Splitscar Gorge are breathtaking,” Ma added.

  “I’ve always wanted to raft down the River Karre,” Nanni joined in.

  “Staying would be dangerous,” Da said, stroking his chin. “After all, I believe there are some pending charges.”

  Jorn’s face had grown so bloated and red with anger, I really thought he might explode. The scholars cleared their throats, which pulled him from his rage-induced stupor.

  “All charges are summarily dismissed,” Jorn croaked.

  “Yes, that sounds very nice,” Ma said, “but I think we could do with a bit of clemency as well.”

  “And immunity,” Nanni insisted, leveling a glare at Jorn. “We don’t want to incriminate ourselves
.”

  Jorn’s jaw dropped, ready to give us an earful, when the scholars again cleared their throats. Jorn’s outburst died on his lips and all he said was, “Done.”

  Da clapped his hands together. “Excellent. We’ll look forward to the paperwork spelling all that out delivered to our house sometime this week. Now I wonder, Castellan, as we Grimjinxes are responsible for saving Vengekeep, might we have just a moment alone to study the tapestry ourselves? So we can … contemplate how that saving might happen.”

  Jorn sniffed, and a grudging smile parted his lips. “Please. Take all the time you need.”

  He turned with the scholars, clip-clopped across the floor, and left us alone. For a moment. The door then opened and a stateguard brandishing a polearm entered to watch over us. We stood with our backs to him, studying the tapestry thoughtfully.

  “By the Seven! Would you look at that?” Ma said, shaking her head in something akin to awe. “Who would have thought? The Grimjinxes, saviors of Vengekeep.”

  I gave a curt nod. “Absolutely bangers.” Then I lowered my voice. “Some of your best work, Ma.”

  Ma and Da continued looking straight ahead, pretending to observe the tapestry’s intricate detail, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Ma’s jaw drop in mock surprise. She, too, spoke quietly. “Why, Jaxter Grimjinx, whatever do you mean?”

  I guffawed. “You should leave the outright lying to Da because you’re not very good at it. I’d know your forgeries anywhere. I can see where anyone else would be fooled. But you wove that tapestry.”

  We all huddled together tightly. Da pointed, as if to show me something I hadn’t noticed. I played along for the guard’s benefit, leaning in to observe, as we continued to speak in hushed tones.

  “So what was your first clue?” he asked.

  “Neither of you was the least bit worried when we were arrested for what should have been an easy prosecution. Like you knew they wouldn’t be able to touch you.”