“Never heard of it. But I can guess Zalski finding it would be nothing good for us.”
Kora said, “We have to get back to Yangerton. This morning. I’ll transport us and the animals to the woods outside the city.”
Kansten said, “Why don’t you transport us to Alten? Right now? There’s no point letting Zalski get his paws on some mindstone, even if he doesn’t have the spell he wants.”
“Transporting doesn’t work that way. He could be anywhere in the mountains, I can’t just move myself to where he is. I have to know the location.”
Lanokas said, “You’ve seen the location, right? In a way you have. Anyway, it’s worth a shot.” He took Kora’s hand, and Kansten grabbed her other. Kora sighed, focused her mind on the spot where she had seen Alten, and spoke the incantation. Nothing happened. She tried a few more times, then tore herself from her friends.
“I told you it wouldn’t work. I’m pretty sure the spell’s valid for places I can see or I’ve physically been to, that’s it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have spent a week traveling to the Hall.”
Lanokas said, “To be fair, the Hall has enchantments against that spell.”
“It’s enchanted in some way,” Kora agreed. She asked, “Did you know Alten can’t stand Malzin?” Kansten’s eyes gleamed with interest. Lanokas took a moment to let Kora’s question sink in. “He hates her. He’ll be rejoining Zalski, now he’s got mindstone.”
Kansten offered, “At least Zalski doesn’t have the Librette.”
Lanokas said, “He’ll realize soon enough we must have it. I don’t know why Laskenay doesn’t destroy the thing.”
“We tried,” said Kora. “The Hall’s not the only thing protected by enchantments.”
“How long before the sun’s up, do you think?” asked Kansten. Lanokas gazed upward.
“An hour. We should probably move the horses. It’ll save time later. I doubt any of us can get more sleep, so we might as well do something useful.”
“Shouldn’t one of us stay?” Kora asked. “Keep watch?”
“There’s no one around here,” said Lanokas.
They turned back to the barn, and Kansten said, “Why would Zalski send his general to find mindstone? You’d think he could send a peon.”
Lanokas said, “Zalski’d never trust a peon to keep silent. No, he wouldn’t trust anyone but Alten for this. Alten, now…. The best way to describe Alten Grombach is to say he looks out for himself. He had no vendetta against my father, but he saw Zalski’s power. He bet on the traitor and secured his place in the new regime. If I know Alten at all—and he was no stranger around the Palace—he grudges this search Zalski set him.”
“Oh, he does,” said Kora. “That was obvious.”
“He grudges it at the same time he knows it’s a mark of Zalski’s faith, and as Zalski could squash him in an instant…. Alten would turn on a sorcerer as quickly as he turned on my father, if he had enough to gain. And don’t think Zalski can’t see through him. As long as the regime’s stable, Alten will be as loyal as they come. That’s his saving grace. That’s how they coexist.”
Lanokas fell silent as they entered the barn. Careful not to wake the boys, they arranged themselves around one of the horses, and Kora transported them all to an open space in an otherwise wooded area, the forest between Yangerton and the capital. The animal whinnied in protest, and dawn’s firsts silver rays dazzled Kora’s eyes. Lanokas asked, “Is this the last clearing?”
“The closest one to Yangerton,” Kora answered, somewhat winded. She had never traveled such a distance by magic, and sensed this was close to the extreme of what she could manage. Lanokas led the horse to the nearest tree and secured its reins in a branch. Kansten told the others:
“I’ll go ahead. The chiefs will want to know what we’ve been up to.”
She started off while Kora returned to Wheatfield, where she transported the rest of the horses two at a time to Lanokas, who secured them as he had the first. By the time they finished day had broken, and after Kora rested a moment, the two Leaguesmen returned to the loft to rouse the teenagers.
“Awesome,” said Bidd, when Lanokas explained the morning’s plans. He jumped down to the first level. Hal looked just as enthusiastic, though he used the ladder. Hayden, drowsier than anything else, said nothing; he stumbled down last, and Kora moved the party to the clearing in two groups.
Twenty minutes later, they snuck into Yangerton’s outskirts. The morning was overcast but dry, rather balmy. All that magic had exhausted Kora. Her very soul ached, more so than her body, but she endured another half hour of drifting among townspeople and avoiding the guards who seemed to be everywhere that day. Before long she reached the building, identical to so many others, where the rest of the League was waiting—or should be.
Kora tramped up the staircase with her heart in her throat. Who would greet the new arrivals? Whom might Bidd and Hayden never meet? Lanokas would not voice such speculation, but the line of his mouth was thin as he rapped on the door.
No one came to let them in. He rapped a second time, hard and brisk, his signature knock, and this time the door opened. Bendelof flew out and threw her arms around the sorceress. “You made it!”
Neslan sat in the corner, listening as Kansten wrapped up her account of meeting Hal. Laskenay, her eyes as icy blue as ever and fixed unblinkingly on her subordinate, paid greater attention to the story than anyone else did: an accomplishment, since Menikas stood entranced by the tale with Ranler at his side. Everyone was accounted for. Everyone, that was, expect the one person who would never sit with the League again. When Kansten realized her companions had arrived she fell quiet, and Laskenay jumped up from her seat. “I need to speak with you,” Kora told the sorceress.
Leaving Lanokas to introduce the newcomers, Kora followed the League’s female head to the room on the left, the room where she had been sleeping when Petroc first summoned her to the Hall. Could that honestly have been a mere week ago? A week and a half?
Laskenay put up a sound barrier. The profoundness of the sympathy with which she gazed at Kora threw the girl completely off her guard, until she realized Neslan had surely told, in full detail, all that had happened in Podrar. Laskenay seemed to want to mention Sedder, but Kora had not pulled her away for that, so she expressed her sorrow with a soft, stabilizing hand on Kora’s shoulder that proved how deeply she understood Kora’s loss. Kora remembered how Valkin had died, and a new admiration for his widow overcame her.
“It’s good to have you back,” was all Laskenay said. Kora pulled the chain of red gold from her sack and handed it over. “This is it? Kansten told me all about it. Have you decided how to use it?”
“I chose Alten. Laskenay, is the Librette in here?”
A puff of black smoke from against the far wall was answer enough. Kora ran over and started rifling through the book.
“What are you doing? I realize Neslan has a theory, about Zalski wanting a particular spell….”
“And Alten proved it,” said Kora. “He has mindstone now. He’s been searching for mindstone for months. Zalski wants it to use with a spell from this book, though I still don’t see why he couldn’t just use Estatua.”
“Mindstone requires an active mind and still body. Estatua is a freezing spell. Its victim literally is a statue, in suspended consciousness: there’s no brain function. A person can sit through centuries under the spell, and then be revived with no consequence.”
“So mindstone would be of no use with that incantation.”
Laskenay and Kora flipped through the Librette, page after page, searching for a spell that could be used in conjunction with mindstone. Finally, near the back, was a spell called “Carapacio.” Its description said it:
“Freezes the body while leaving the brain untouched. Laskenay, this is it!”
Laskenay trembled briefly, but intensely enough that she nearly dropped the tome from her lap. “This spell is awful,” she said. “Torturous.”
Ko
ra stared at her. “It’s just a variation on Estatua, isn’t it?”
“Leaving the brain active means the brain requires oxygen, oxygen it can’t receive because the victim doesn’t breathe, because no blood can circulate. Someone under this spell would asphyxiate within two minutes.”
“Lifestone,” muttered Kora.
“What did you say?”
“Alten said something about a Lifestone.”
“Yes, with this spell Zalski would want the Lifestone. I don’t know how he thinks he’ll find it, it’s been lost for generations longer than the Librette.”
Kora did a double take. “You know what the Lifestone is?”
“It’s a legend, most likely based in fact. Three or four centuries before Hansrelto there lived a sorceress—she’s given various names—whose love was on his deathbed. They both were young, and it seemed unjust that he should die, so nearly out of her mind with grief, this sorceress enchanted some kind of stone—some accounts say a diamond, others a sapphire or piece of quartz—into the Lifestone. This stone keeps its possessor from crossing to death, no matter injury or illness. It took the woman a full month to create and cast the enchantment, by which time her love was nearing his last day and in great pain. She gave him the stone and he took it with gratitude.”
“Why didn’t she just heal him?”
“Medical magic is a more recent phenomenon, Kora. Much more than we, the ancients were comfortable considering pain and death unavoidable aspects of life, even necessary ones. The legend teaches that moral, and as Neslan could tell you, much of their literature as well. They never invited illness, but they claimed it purged the soul.
“Now, while the Lifestone will keep a man alive, it does nothing to treat his pain or heal his body. This man’s ills were incurable, and as his pain grew more and more severe he descended into madness. The sorceress, horrified by what she’d done, took the stone from him, and he died almost instantly. She tried everything she could to destroy her abomination, to break the enchantment, but by its nature the charm was unbreakable and protected its medium, the stone, from any damage. The woman could do nothing but burn her work, all evidence of the spell, and hide the Lifestone where none would ever find it. In the mountains, it’s told.”
“Sorcerers have an affinity for the mountains, don’t they?”
“It seems so, if the legend is true. The stone could be anywhere.”
“Including with Zalski,” said Kora. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep her voice level. “This Lifestone, would it possibly keep someone under Hansrelto’s spell alive while Zalski used mindstone to uncover all his secrets?”
“It would indeed.”
“That explains….” Kora covered her mouth. “That explains why Zalski tried to kidnap Kansten. He didn’t want to kill her, not right away. He was going to wait until he had the Librette and both those stones. Laskenay, he’s out to capture one of us, someone from the League, because then he’d know everything.”
Laskenay protested, “He had Wilhem. Why would he kill Wilhem? If what you say is true, if he wants one of us alive….”
“Wilhem was a spy. His job was to pass information to you, he hardly knew a thing about what you and Menikas were doing, am I right? It wouldn’t have been wise for him to know. Besides, when Wilhem was caught Zalski didn’t have the book. Or the mindstone. No, Wilhem had to die.”
“Zalski has mindstone now,” said Laskenay. “And until we prove otherwise, I’ll assume he has the Lifestone. If we assume he doesn’t and we’re wrong….”
Kora glanced with a shudder at the book she held. “We have to keep the Librette from him. We have to.”
“If only we could destroy that page. That single page. The single word of the incantation.”
Kora and Laskenay tried to make the page, then the ink, vanish, but not even their combined power could deface the text. Kora knocked the Librette away in desperation. “What do we do? We can’t keep it with us, Zalski thinks we have it. We either found it or we gave up the search, that’s what he said before…. Before he killed Sedder.” Kora caught Laskenay’s eye. “I wasn’t fast enough. A simple shield spell would have saved him, my shell deflected that same curse when Zalski cast it at me.”
Laskenay put her hand back on Kora’s shoulder. “You had no experience with magic. You faced Zalski with the additional threat of some ten guards and Malzin, and lost one person. One person. I don’t mean to trivialize that loss, but you are the reason four people in the next room are still alive. Bennie told me what Sedder did. He died a hero’s death.”
A death to inspire his companions. The kind of death he had spoken of to encourage a frightened and confused young sorceress. Kora nodded, a faint, grateful smile beneath her tearing eyes. Laskenay gave her a motherly squeeze.
“You don’t have Petroc’s threats lying over your head anymore. Do you still want to leave us?” Kora stared at her feet. “Neslan said you mentioned leaving. He also said you handled your loss better than most would have.”
Kora could not bring herself to look at Laskenay. “I flew at Lanokas. What would someone else have done, stab him?”
“None of that matters now, you know it doesn’t. I just need to know if you’re still planning to walk away.”
“I’m not,” said Kora. And that was true. The frights she had shared with Kansten and Lanokas had changed her, had led her to discover a perseverant kind of strength inside herself that grew thin at times but would never snap in two unless she chose to destroy it. She wiped the remnants of a few stray tears from her face and changed the subject.
“How would Zalski know that spell exists? Hansrelto’s mindstone spell?”
“Mudar,” said Laskenay, and the familiar, faded binding of The Book of the Book came flying toward her. She set it atop the Librette and flipped a few pages. “Here,” she said. “I skimmed this once before.”
Kora stared at a subheading halfway down the left-hand page that read, “The longing for mindstone.” Laskenay told her, “Hansrelto was fascinated with the mind. I imagine that’s why he wrote the spell. He just never found the mindstone to satisfy his curiosity. But that’s enough about Zalski for now.”
“Galisan,” Kora remembered. Her blood ran cold. “We mentioned Galisan in the Landfill. Before the attack. I’m pretty sure Zalski was with us at some point, is Galisan…?”
“Galisan’s fine,” said Laskenay. “Zalski heard nothing about him, or he’d be dead or missing by now. And I mean it, that’s enough about Zalski. Tell me about these youths. Kansten explained how you met them….”
“Hayden’s quiet,” said Kora. “He’s quiet, but I’d wager he thinks quick. He’ll take the League seriously. Now, Bidd…. I’m not sure Bidd understands what he’ll be up against. He’s got a hasty mouth, and he excites easily. He might panic if he’s ambushed, especially before he gets used to things. Those two are cousins, and skilled with a bow.”
Laskenay looked pleased. “That’s what Kansten said. We can always use archers.”
“As far as Hal goes, I only met him yesterday. He seems to have his head on straight enough, but he could be more careful. Quieter, I mean. He and Bidd have been friends a long time. He’s resourceful, that much I can tell you. He made a home of sorts out of an abandoned farmhouse, my mother’s farmhouse.”
“Kansten said you returned with a transport spell? You’ll have to give me the incantation. I don’t know it.”
“I tried to transport to Alten, to take the mindstone….”
Laskenay looked more frightened than Kora had ever seen her. Her eyes lost their luster, distinctly resembling her twin’s; she grabbed Kora’s arm. “Tell me that didn’t work.”
Kora drew back, confused. “Kora!”
“It didn’t work.”
“That could have been disastrous!”
“Why?” Kora stammered. “How? Do you want your brother to have mindstone?”
Kora knew instantly she had gone too far. Laskenay gave a jolt at the sound of the
word “brother,” and though she did not raise her voice—in fact, her voice grew quieter—her words had a mixture of suppressed anger and contrived confidence no one else could have achieved.
“You know as well as I that if Zalski set to searching us out we’d be dead within a month. Within a week, if fortune favored him. He refrains because he wants to destroy us a specific way. He wants rumors, specific ones, to arise about our deaths. He wants them badly enough he overlooks our small successes. If people held the faintest suspicion Zalski tore through one of our minds to destroy the rest of us…. Kora, a pall of fear would descend like Herezoth has never known. Group resistance would be impossible. Zalski would require one capture to bring down an enterprise, and the bigger the operation—the more likely one normally would deem it to succeed—the more likely it becomes to fail. Zalski lets us carry on while he plans to crush not only our rebellion, but to stem any future opposition. If he saw a critical piece of what he needs slip through his fingers, most likely never to return, there’s a chance he’d abandon his schemes and quash us in a less remarkable way, but one equally final. Let him have his mindstone. We have his book.”
“He’ll come after it,” said Kora.
“If he does it will be in stealth, not an attack like you saw in Podrar. Zalski can have a horrible kind of self-restraint.”
“I’ve noticed,” Kora said. She stared at her thumbs, unsure of what to say, unable to watch her fellow sorceress run a hand down her face. “You were right to be sharp with me,” Kora said. “I should have consulted you before trying to stop Alten. Should have talked to Menikas. I just didn’t realize….”
“No harm was done,” said Laskenay. “There’s no reason to dwell on this, any of this, not now. We’ve new members to induct. The League’s waiting.”
The first thing Kora noticed when she entered the main room was that Neslan, Ranler, and Bendelof had disappeared. “They’re moving the horses,” Lanokas said. Laskenay set a ring of candles in the middle of the room. Very little light filtered in through the curtains, and when Lanokas extinguished the lamps the space was filled with a twilight dimness, though it was not yet midday. As Laskenay prodded the boys to the center of the circle, what should have been a moment of unexpected peace for Kora was fractured by the memory of her own initiation, of the dear friend who had stood beside her answering Laskenay’s questions.
The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 30
