Sedder forced a smile. “She came back three minutes later, you know. And I got my first dog in the bargain, the sweetest one I had.”
“So that ended well, sure. But this? This? How can this possibly end in anything but horror? I know the Giver’s using us to do his work, or will be. I just wish I knew how or for what purpose, because when all is said and done I can’t imagine we’ll make any difference. It is thanks to him you’re with me, and I do think I’m where I need to be, I really do. And that’s something, it…. Sedder, I miss home so much.”
He put a sheltering arm around her. “I missed it before we left, missed what it used to be. My God, there are things in life you assume will always be there. You make your plans, you see things unfolding a certain way….”
“And then everything goes straight to hell.” Kora dropped her eyes to the street in front of her. She wanted to tell Sedder about that piece of parchment sitting in the room they just had left, about how his parents’ names were on it and what she thought that meant. That was impossible, though, at least until she proved what she suspected. She ended up saying, still staring at the cobblestones, “You saved my life, you know. When we met the….” She almost said the League. “When we met the others. That arrow might have killed you, if my shield….”
“Then you saved my life too. We should shake hands,” (they did so), “call it even, and forget it. We have other things to worry about.”
The Librette. Her family. What had happened to his family. Kora conceded the point. “I hope Zacry and my mother understand why I….”
“They do. They’re frightened out of their minds for you—or jealous, in Zac’s case—but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand. You can’t do anything for them at this point, as awful as that sounds. It’s all already done, everything that could be. You need to concentrate on yourself, and that means getting rest. Listen, we shouldn’t be talking about this anyway.”
“You’re right,” said Kora. “We should both get some sleep. We have a full day tomorrow.” He squeezed her hand, and she returned to her apartment, he to his. At least, she thought, they could spend tomorrow together.
* * *
Kora, Sedder, and Kansten set off the next morning with low expectations. Of the three, Kansten had the best idea how to carry out the search. Kora and Sedder would enter a shop and start browsing. Kansten would wait a minute or two and then walk in, so no one would suspect she knew them. She could look at shelves the others passed over; they would all appear more natural that way. The plan made sense, even helped to raise Kora’s spirits, until she left the third shop empty-handed and with a pounding headache, her throat screaming for a glass of water.
“We’ll never find this thing,” she moaned when she saw the size of shop number four.
Kansten said, “We’re going about this the wrong way. A blind search is good for nothing. We’re looking for a book, right? An enchanted book. What’s the best way to disguise a book so no one’ll find it?”
Sedder pulled them around to a narrow alley beside the shop, away from the street. “As another book,” he said. “Maybe another spellbook, one radically different. No one would see it for what it was.”
“The perfect mask,” said Kora. “Kansten, what do you think?”
“I think we’re on to something. It narrows the search, if nothing else, so I say we go with it. Laskenay might murder us when she finds out, mind you….”
“That’s a problem,” said Sedder. “And here’s another: spellbooks aren’t exactly common. Where would we even start to look for one?”
Kora and Kansten glanced at one another, and Kansten grimaced. Kora knew they were thinking of the same man. They said together, “Markulas.”
“Back again, I see.” The fortuneteller’s voice was as crisp and dry as Kora remembered. His leathered face showed no inkling of surprise. “You brought a companion this time. I guess he hasn’t come for a reading?”
Kansten fixed Markulas with a gaze that bordered on loathing. “You guess correctly.”
Before Kansten could antagonize the man whose help they needed, Kora spoke above her.
“We came to ask you something. This may seem strange, but we, um….”
Sedder finished when her voice drifted off. “Do you know how we would go about looking for spellbooks? You see, I’ve developed an interest….”
“An academic interest, I’m sure. You’re not the only one.”
Markulas passed to the back of the shop, where he moved his cards to a chair and tried to pry open the antique chest he used as a table with one of the candlesticks he normally stored on top of it. Before he could, someone new walked in, a middle-aged woman with bushy, honey-colored hair. She looked composed for the most part, and determined, but her right hand gave her away; she had balled it into a shaking fist.
“A reading?” Markulas asked, without waiting for an answer. “Step this way. We can sit on the floor while these three root for what they need in the store proper.”
Sedder and Kora tugged the chest to the shop’s front. It might have been filled with lead, it was so heavy, but they only had to move it a small distance, and Markulas was soon able to shut the curtain. Kora heard him tell the woman, “Four pieces of silver. Now pick three numbers, any number less than two hundred.” After that, not a sound passed through the curtain; Markulas must have been whispering. Kora thought back on her own reading and almost shuddered. Sedder’s voice brought her back to the present moment.
“Why would the man make us lug this thing?”
Kora said, “He must always do readings in the back. Always. He’s strange.”
“Well, help me open this, will you?”
The chest had no lock, but something on the inside weighted the lid. All three Leaguesmen together could barely pull it open. When they did so, they discovered an iron bar tied to a metal ring on the cover’s flipside. Sedder massaged an aching hand.
“Well, that’s interesting.”
Kora said, “The chest is valuable. He doesn’t want it stolen.”
Sedder knelt to examine its contents. “Spellbooks,” he announced. “At least ten.”
They removed every tome, making three piles. Kora’s books looked more ancient than the chest itself. Most of the writing had faded through the years, and some had discolored pages; others were missing them in fistfuls. Kora gingerly leafed through them, but none contained particularly dark spells. Healing spells filled the first: incantations to close wounds, replenish burned skin, get rid of scars. The second was in worse condition and taught magic much less powerful. Its contents did things like make hair grow, or make freckles appear. If either tome was dark magic in disguise, the disguise was top-grade.
Kora had just grabbed a third book when the woman shut away with Markulas half-uttered, half-tried to suppress a cry of shock. She tore through the curtain, her face in her hands, and rushed to the door and out the shop, almost knocking over an entire shelf of amulets. Unflustered, Markulas drew the curtain back and took a seat, shuffling his cards on his knees with the same flourish he had shown the day before. Sedder stared at him. Kora whispered to Kansten, “This is hopeless. How do we know if one of these is the blasted Librette Oscure?”
At her last words, a mini-explosion erupted at her feet. One of the books, the one with healing spells, spewed black smoke enough to fill the shop, had it spread out; the fumes, however, hovered in a dense cloud around the book. They turned blood red in the blink of an eye and just as quickly disappeared, leaving in their place a tome that looked just as worn as the other but otherwise decidedly distinct. Its cover was as dark as the smoke had been.
Kora snagged the spellbook. Sedder stepped close to her, as though unsure what Markulas might do. His precautions proved unnecessary; the fortuneteller made no movement.
“The Librette Oscure,” he said, his voice as curt as ever. “All these years under my very nose. I never had interest in the field of dark magic, my clients either.”
Kansten
drew her dagger and pointed it at the old man. “We’ll be taking the book,” she announced.
“So it seems.” Markulas looked at Kora. “You’ve taken your destiny in your hands. The cards don’t lie. Whoever you are, yours is a name the generations will remember.”
Kora forced the Librette in Sedder’s sack with fumbling fingers. Kansten urged, “The one on top my pile, take it too.”
That was the only book Kansten had looked through. Kora did as she said, backing out of the store.
“Give me the sack,” said Sedder. Kora refused.
“I should carry it. I can protect the book if necessary.”
“That shield,” Sedder remembered. “Come on, let’s get away from here.”
The dirt road was empty, which meant no witnesses. Markulas could have a bow….
The trio sprinted off, but the teller did not follow. The trip back to the lodging house seemed to take five times as long as its actual hour and a half. Kora kept imagining the scene that would unfold if a soldier saw fit to stop her and search her belongings. Her courage turned to mush at even a hint of black—she thought it could be a uniform—and sometimes it was, but every supposed guardian of the peace let the three youths pass. How could the army know they carried the book of darkest magic ever contemplated? When Kora thought it over later, she realized most of these men had never heard of the Librette. They were not elite guardsmen; for the most part, they were trying to feed their families, nothing more.
Back at the boarding house, Kora’s group found Laskenay reading The Book of the Book. She had set some logs in the hearth for when the other Leaguesmen returned. “I’m waiting to hear from Galisan,” she said. “I thought I’d use the time to pore through this, there may be something to guide our search. Why are you three back this early?” Her ice blue eyes lit up, but not too much. “You can’t have found…?”
“We did,” said Kansten. Kora pulled the black-covered tome from Sedder’s sack. Laskenay jumped to her feet, knocking her own book to the floor.
Sedder confessed how they had abandoned their assignment. When he reached the cloud of smoke, Laskenay turned stone gray, and Kora assured her Markulas did not know their names and had seemed to take nothing to heart.
“Kansten took another book too, I don’t know why,” said Sedder.
Kora pulled out the second spellbook and flipped through it. “These are some powerful incantations. There are spells to shoot something in the air, to increase your speed.”
“They’re mostly for combat or survival,” said Kansten. “The drawings….”
Kora flipped to the next sheet. “Yes, here’s one to purify water. And this one, Fwaig Commenz….”
The corner of the page curled and darkened. A small line of crimson moved closer and closer to the margin’s edge, toward the words. Kora blew out the tiny flame.
“Starts a fire?” Sedder guessed. Kansten raised a hand to her mouth. Kora stood frozen, staring at the parchment that had started to burn away. Laskenay, with a stoicism to match Markulas, guided Kora to the hearth.
“Stare at the logs,” she said. “Stare at them, truly want them to ignite. Are you concentrating?” Kora took a moment to say she was. Her voice kept sticking in her throat. “Now repeat that incantation.”
“Fwaig Commenz.” Nothing happened.
“Try again,” said Laskenay.
“Fwaig Commenz,” Kora repeated.
A rush of heat ran through her. Flames erupted from the logs, thick tongues, as though they had been burning for hours. Her heart pounding, her eyes glued to the fire, Kora backed away, shaking her head. “It’s not possible,” she muttered. She threw her headwrap to the floor. “It can’t be possible, I don’t have the mark.” She turned to face the others, her skin ashen. “I don’t have the mark!”
Kansten spoke carefully. “Maybe your mark’s different from the usual one.”
“What do you mean?”
“The ruby on your forehead, it’s glowing.”
Utter silence. The soft crackling of the wood sounded in Kora’s ears like so many claps of thunder. Laskenay was the first to come to herself. “Let’s have a little chat,” she suggested. “Just the two of us.”
“I’m no sorceress,” Kora insisted. “I swear I’m not a….”
Laskenay led her through the doorway on the right. “There’s no reason to panic, none at all. You should probably shut that book, though. You’re about to drop it.” Kora let the spellbook fall onto one of the mattresses that littered the ground.
“When those logs caught fire, I had the strangest feeling….”
“A burning sensation?” said Laskenay. “Down your spine? You grow used to it.”
“Are you…?”
Laskenay pulled up her sleeve to reveal a birthmark, brown, shaped like a triangle on her left forearm. She exposed it only long enough for Kora to get a clear glimpse, then let the fabric fall back. Kora raised her eyes to Laskenay’s face.
“Zalski is my brother. He was born three minutes before me.”
“You’re twins,” Kora whispered. Knees shaking, she lowered herself to the ground. Laskenay smoothed her skirt and used a pile of blankets as a cushion.
“The rest of the League is aware I’m a sorceress. Kansten’s telling Sedder right now. But none of them knows about my family, none but those who knew me before.”
“Lanokas, Menikas, and Neslan.” Kora’s head felt light. “You were all nobles.”
“I come from a line of pure sorcerers, one that goes back generations. Zalski was always proud of that.”
“Laskenay, what do you think the League would do if they found out? Do you think Bennie would care who you’re related to? That Sedder would?”
Laskenay jabbed a finger at her chest. “I care. I grew up alongside the man. I should have been able to stop him. I’m here now because I have to be, to set right what I let happen, though I prefer that people think I seek revenge. When I remember how he started…. He had such a good heart when we were small. He was innocent, malleable. If people could have seen him then…. He’s not a monster, I swear to you, he just never could cope with the stigma of magic. He never trusted his friends. He knew they would abandon him should they learn his secret. He was mistaken, but convinced, and throughout the years he told one person alone the truth about himself: his wife. How could I blame him for his silence? Visitors, our elders, they would speak about sorcerers as though they were worms, not knowing what we were. Zalski felt that the world was against him.”
“So he started fighting back.”
“It was instinct for him. Our family had some spellbooks, heirlooms of a type. Not many, to be sure, but enough of them. We learned incantations in secret, he and I, as adolescents. I felt uneasy, but I studied with him. I studied those spells.”
“Why in secret?” Kora dared to ask.
“Our father wanted us nowhere near those books. Forbade us to touch them. Zalski hated him for that, because Father was a sorcerer, though he never dabbled with magic. He kept the tomes as he was wary whom they might fall to if he rid his home of them.” Laskenay let out a sad little sigh. “The man meant well. He never suspected the last person who should have access to them was living beneath his roof. Nor did I.
“Zalski called Father a traitor once for not taking up the art. I knew they stopped speaking after that, but never thought my brother was buying spellbooks of his own, amassing incantations of a different type than the ones we learned together, though I should have guessed. I should have guessed what he sought to do.
“I married five years ago,” Laskenay explained. “I saw Zalski little after that. Three years later he took the Palace and killed the king. He killed his own parents.”
“Your parents.”
“My husband, too, died in the revolt. Neslan was in that battle for the throne, he witnessed his death.”
Kora covered her gaping mouth with her hand. “Did Neslan tell you how…?”
“I won’t allow him. I couldn’t st
and to know, but I’ve worked more magic in my husband’s memory than I ever did before, because if we’re to have any chance of defeating Zalski we need my incantations. I have never felt empowered, I feel cursed. I work magic from necessity, and it pains me to ask you, truly it does, but you may be called to make that same sacrifice.”
A knot twisted Kora’s stomach. Laskenay’s revelations had so enthralled her, so surprised her, that she had forgotten what spurred the woman to speak in the first place. Now everything came rushing back, with the conviction that, no matter how Kora pleaded, Laskenay would not help her remove the ruby magically. Not if the gem proved the source of her sorcery.
“That fire spell was strong, as strong as I could cast it, and I first worked magic fifteen years ago. The first spell cast by a sorceress” (Kora shuddered at the word) “is typically weak. You should have been able to light a leaf on fire, or maybe a sheaf of parchment, but never logs like that. And you’ll only get stronger. Together we might challenge Zalski, should we three come face to face. I’d like to teach you. It would benefit us both.”
Kora bit her lip. Every part of her revolted. “I’ll do it,” she said. Laskenay patted her arm.
“We should probably go out to the other room. The Librette….”
Kora would never have said so aloud, but she was curious as to what spells were actually in that book, and she was not the only one. Sedder and Kansten were already looking through it.
Kansten said, “Some of these spells are awful, but not all of them. For each incantation to melt someone’s fingers….”
“There is not a spell for that,” said Kora.
“…there’s one more morally neutral. This is just a collection of Hansrelto’s work. We might actually use a few things.”
“Not we,” said Kora. “Me. Me and Laskenay. You haven’t said a word about the fire, either one of you.”
Sedder told her, “There’s nothing to say. We’re standing behind you.”
The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 9
