The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  It led him northwest on an angle leading away from the Lily house. He strode quickly, repairing the shield spell every twenty steps. He stumbled over the uneven ground, climbing over a stile spanning a stone wall. Beyond, the ground dropped away sharply. A set of crumbling steps provided the route downward. At the bottom, several paths spoked away and quickly wriggled out of sight between hovels. Keros stood a moment to take his bearings, then followed the middle one.

  Fear crept up his spine on beetle feet. He swallowed and repaired the shield spell again. Since the Kalpestrine had fallen, even properly constructed spells twisted strangely. It was like the rules of majick had changed. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Using majick now seemed to do something inside the majicar’s mind. It was a numb feeling, like part of himself didn’t belong to him anymore. He’d avoided using his own majick as much as possible, hoping that the strangeness would pass. But now he had no choice, and couldn’t help but wonder what it was doing to him. His stomach tightened and he continued on.

  At this time of the morning, there should have been a bustle in the Riddles, but it was deserted. There wasn’t even a stray cat or rat. A clatter behind him made him start. He spun around. A handful of roof tiles had fallen. Now he noticed that the weeds thrusting up between the buckled cobblestones were vibrating. As he watched, the house beside him shifted with a grating groan. Keros turned and bolted. Just in time. A moment later, the house collapsed with a thunderous roar. A cloud of dust billowed in the air. Keros coughed and continued on, hoping that no one had been inside. It was a frail hope.

  The majick trail took him over the Ferradon River to the edge of the Riddles. He paused at the stone bridge. It arched over the swift-running river in a graceful span and was wide enough for two carriages to pass without touching. At some point the original stone rails had been replaced with wrought iron, which now was rusting and flaking away. The road across was in good repair, however, because the businesses on Ashford Avenue used this bridge for their supply wagons.

  As he watched, the bridge twitched. But the trail led to the other side. Keros started over in a quick jog. The wind gusted and rain slapped his face as his hood slipped off his head. He crested the span and stopped dead.

  The bridge ended in a broad roundabout on the other bank. A half-dozen streets fed into it. Normally this was a bustling market. On the fringe of the Riddles, it attracted the denizens of Sylmont. Here was where you could buy a vast array of smuggled and illegal things. Except now the carts and tents were flattened and debris littered the area as if a tornado had struck but moments ago.

  As he watched, a streak of majick erupted from the mouth of one of the streets. It disappeared up an opposite street. Keros waited for the sound of an impact, but there was only eerie silence. Then suddenly a ball of majick floated out of the second street opening and floated gently toward the first. Before it got there, the sickly green bubble burst. Droplets of majick sprayed outward and dripped down on the ground. Where it landed, stone bubbled and ran in thick, viscous trickles. The side of a bakery sweated away and the wall crumpled with a wet, grating sound. A bed tumbled from the third floor and screams from within echoed and then cut off sharply.

  Ghost majick swirled away from the two spells. They tangled together and found a weaving, then drifted away, this time toward Sylmont’s city center. Keros bit the tip of his tongue, tasting blood. What in the holy black depths was happening?

  He scuttled forward, feeling too exposed on the bridge. He reached the other side and dropped to a crouch beside the pier anchoring the bridge to the bank of the river. More majick erupted from the two streets. Different colors this time—gray and orange. The gray flung itself out in sticky strands. The orange meandered over the ground like a blind animal, nosing its way across the roundabout. The two majicks collided and flames erupted. Black greasy smoke billowed and tumbled down close to the ground, spreading outward in a thick, menacing cloud. Keros gripped his illidre, feeding the shield spell as he drew a deep breath and held it, closing his eyes tight. The smoke enveloped him. It was cold and it groped his exposed skin with a corrosive touch. Blisters spread over face and ears, traveling down his neck and over his hands. The grains dribbled past and the smoke settled slowly, flowing away like water draining out of a tub. It slid down his chest and thighs and lay across the ground like a sulfurous mist.

  Keros let out the breath he was holding with a gasp. His face was on fire. The blisters on his eyelids split open and seeped as he blinked. He pushed to his feet and staggered forward. It didn’t take guild-schooling to realize that what was happening was a majicar battle. It was unheard of—it was insane. Yet it could be nothing else. He had to stop this—somehow—before they leveled Sylmont and killed everyone inside the city.

  He crossed to the middle of the roundabout, standing between the two streets where the battling majicars hid from one another. From the left, a thin scarlet skein of majick rolled out, spinning through the air like a corkscrew. Fury swelled in Keros. He reached for his majick, drawing deep. He didn’t try for finesse. His cardinal affinities were Stone and Water. He wove them together with Bone, Stillness, and Ice, forming a massive club. It glimmered blue and white. With it, he battered the twisting scarlet spell, smashing it to pieces with brutal determination, knowing that the recoil on the casting majicar would be painful, if not fatal. He did the same to the streamer of green majick that unrolled like a ribbon of silk on his right. The attacking majicars were either getting tired, or they were not masters; Keros shattered their spells easily.

  “If you don’t want to die today, come out of your holes now!” he shouted hoarsely.

  A peculiar something licked his mind. It was not painful, but not entirely comfortable either. He shook his head, watching the two street entrances balefully.

  At last there was a rattle of stones and flicker of movement from the left. Two figures slowly emerged, one half carrying the second. A moment later a single woman emerged from the other street. She limped and wove back and forth as if drunk. She stopped a dozen paces away from Keros, staring belligerently. She was filthy, her clothes torn and muddy, her face covered with scratches and bruises. Her pale hair was singed and her lips were pulpy, like she’d been chewing them hard. Her eyes gleamed with majickal fire and her body shook with coruscating tremors. Her illidre, shaped like a moon moth, hung from her neck on a silver chain.

  “Who are you?” she rasped. “What right have you to interfere?”

  Keros snarled. “I am a master majicar and I will not let you destroy the city.” He glanced at the other two majicars who slumped to the ground. Both were men. One had passed out, blood seeping from his ears and nose. The other swayed back and forth, his eyes wide as he stared at his filthy opponent. He was equally dirty. His hands were swollen and bloody like he’d been smashing them against stone walls. Like the woman majicar, his eyes glowed with majickal fire. None of the three wore coats or cloaks.

  Keros licked his lips, not letting go of his majick. He didn’t like this at all. Majick didn’t make eyes glow. Except that clearly it did. What was happening?

  “Who are you? What is your fight about?” he asked.

  The female majicar’s right hand curved into a claw and she yanked it back and up as if about to throw something.

  “Stop it now,” Keros ordered. “I’ll kill you if I have to.”

  She glared at him and her eyes flared orange. She shifted and even as she flung her hand forward, he smashed her with his majick. She slammed to the ground with a crackling sound as her bones snapped. Keros swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and spun to face the other majicar who continued to sway. He’d begun to sing—no, he was chanting, Keros realized. Gray majick coiled like vines around the kneeling majicar’s hands. Keros didn’t wait. He struck with his majick and the other man smashed to the ground, his body twisting, his bones snapping like the female majicar.

  Keros stared at his handiwork, panting raggedly. Slowly he pulled his majick back in. He we
nt to where the third majicar lay still breathing. Keros squatted beside him, gripping his chin and turning his head. The other man blinked. Majick fire swirled red in his eyes. He was insane. They all were. Biting his lower lip, Keros pulled the dagger from his belt and found the artery at the majicar’s neck. He didn’t give himself time to consider, but jabbed his blade into the man’s throat and jerked. Blood fountained and spattered Keros’s hand and face. His mouth twisted and he wiped at the warm liquid with the back of his arm, and was glad of the cold rain.

  He stood up, turning in a slow circle. Faces peered out from windows. Slowly, his body feeling like he was a hundred seasons old, Keros bent and wiped his knife clean on the man’s shirt. He straightened and headed back for the bridge. He was shaking. Cold condensed into ice inside him. He’d killed men twice before. But never like this. What had happened to them? What was the majick doing to them?

  Again he felt the phantom brush of something inside his mind and felt his prick swell in instant response. Keros recoiled from the reaction. His stomach clenched into a hard ball and he tightened his hand on the hilt of his dagger. But he couldn’t stab the thing in his mind, and he had a bad feeling that using his majick would only feed it.

  “Sweet Meris,” he swore softly. Had that intimate touch in his mind driven those other majicars to madness? Please the gods, no.

  It took most of a glass to reach the Lily safe house. Keros found himself having to rest, which only made him an inviting target for thieves and brigands. Once he was forced to use his majick to drive them off, and then he forced himself to keep moving, despite his weakness. Outside the safe house, he keyed open the wards. The bricks at the dead end of the alley vanished. He hesitated, seeing two horses, then went inside and resealed the entrance.

  He gave the two big animals a wide berth and slipped quietly inside the house, only to find the point of a rapier pressing against his throat. His eyes widened as he realized that the rapier was held by none other than Nicholas Weverton.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked in sharp surprise.

  “I was invited,” came the cool reply. He didn’t take his eyes or his sword off Keros as he called over his shoulder, “Margaret! I think your friend has arrived.” He looked Keros up and down. “Though I think you may need more help than we do,” he muttered.

  The majicar slumped back against the door as Margaret appeared in the doorway of the dormitory. She was dressed in close-fitting black clothing that was nothing like her usual ornate dresses, and the side of her face was red and creased as if she’d been sleeping.

  “Keros!” She ran forward, pushing Nicholas’s arm away. “What happened to you?” She lifted his arm over her shoulder and helped him to a chair by the table, then pulled off his wet cloak. She stood back, frowning at him, one hand brushing the air near his cheek. “What happened to your face?”

  He reached up and touched his fingers to his cheeks, wincing at the flare of pain. He’d forgotten the blisters caused by the black smoke. Now his skin throbbed as if on fire. He felt weak as a kitten.

  “Build a fire,” Margaret said to Weverton before snatching up a basin and pushing out of the door to fetch water.

  Keros was stunned to see Crosspointe’s most wealthy man and one of the Rampling family’s greatest enemies obey her command. He went to kneel by the potbellied stove and rolled up his sleeves. He shoveled in coal and then lit it with a match from a basket on the shelf just above. He was blowing on the growing flames when Margaret bustled back inside.

  She set the basin on the table and found a rag. She dipped it into the water and began dabbing at Keros’s face. He flinched away and she grabbed his chin firmly.

  “Sit still.”

  He obeyed, closing his eyes and leaning back.

  “See if you can find some tea,” she told Weverton. “I know I want a cup.”

  Once again Keros heard the other man obey. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Margaret.

  “The regent has kidnapped his son. I was hoping you could help us rescue him,” she said bluntly.

  “That’s what you had to do?” he asked. He whistled softly. “Ryland’s head is going to explode when you tell him this.” Then, “Weverton has a son?” He jerked as she brushed over a particularly painful spot.

  “I do,” came the husky baritone response. “Though I’ve kept him a secret.”

  “Wise,” Keros said.

  “It would have been, if I had been successful.” Weverton’s voice was taut with worry and anger.

  Margaret finished her ministrations then and Keros opened his eyes. She frowned at him. “You need a healer.”

  He gave a short, adamant shake of his head. “No.”

  That surprised her. “Why not? What happened?”

  Keros hesitated, glancing first at Weverton and then Margaret. He’d spent his life hiding what he was. It was difficult to baldly reveal himself in front of a stranger. To his surprise, Margaret nodded for him to continue his story. When he had finished recounting his adventure, his two listeners stared soberly.

  “What was wrong with them?” Nicholas asked finally.

  Keros shook his head. “Since the Kalpestrine fell, majick has been acting strangely. I have wondered . . .” He trailed away. He had never been in the Kalpestrine and knew almost nothing about what was inside it. Nor was he a registered majicar. He had no grounds to offer opinions.

  “What?” Margaret demanded.

  Keros gave a reticent shrug. “It is nothing.”

  “Crack that. Tell me.”

  He started to rub his hand over his forehead and stopped when he touched his bubbled, seeping skin. Pain and then a rabid itching rolled over his face. He grimaced. Nicholas rose and took the kettle off the stove. He poured three cups of strong black tea and handed them around before sitting down again. He watched Keros from beneath lowered brows.

  “When a spell is cast, it creates a kind of a ripple effect—a ghost spell. That majick is formed into a kind of spell, but it is usually twisted. It disrupts other spells nearby, tearing down their structures or sticking to them and turning them into something new.

  “Inside a smother room, that majick is absorbed and nullified. Outside, majicars usually create a way of capturing it, otherwise spells would fail or change and become something else—as the problem grows, there would be increasing mayhem as loose ghost spells triggered more spell failures.”

  He sipped his tea. “I believe that the fall of the Kalpestrine did two things. First, I believe that layered into it were spells that collected that ghost majick for all registered majicars—those who had ties to the Kalpestrine itself. Obviously, it is no longer doing so and I’m not certain that any majicars think to gather it up themselves; they’ve never had to. If I am correct,” he added.

  “And the second thing?” Nicholas prodded.

  Keros rubbed a finger around the top of his mug. “The Kalpestrine was full of majick. When it fell, all of that was torn apart and released. What if that created a mass of ghost spells that are attacking all the other spells in Crosspointe? With every one that breaks or combines to make something else, new ghost spells are created. If that is the case, then those spells are feeding on the majick in Sylmont and multiplying. The pressure will build, like steam in a kettle, until it bursts.”

  “By the gods,” Margaret murmured, then thrust to her feet and paced back and forth along the length of the table. She turned, bracing her hands on the back of a chair. “What is happening to the majicars? Why were they battling? Why did they try to attack you?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen majick burn in the eyes like that. It might be that something happened just to those four and it’s not going to happen to anyone else.”

  But he knew better. Something was in his head. It had come in a door made using majick. He didn’t know what it was, but doubted he or the majicars he’d killed were unique. He simply had to use his majick less.

  “What do we do about this gho
st majick?” Margaret looked at Weverton first, then to Keros.

  “It may not be ghost majick,” he pointed out. “I am an unregistered majicar. I know almost nothing about the Kalpestrine.

  She just gave him a long steady look. He flushed and averted his eyes. She did not tolerate fools, and she demanded truth.

  “Well? There has to be something that can be done.”

  She caught her breath audibly, then stopped before she spoke, her eyes heavy on Keros. He knew what she was thinking. Lucy. He gave a faint shake of his head. Weverton couldn’t know about her. And Lucy wasn’t going to be able to help. He thought of what she had said—that there was something wrong with majick. Maybe there was more going on; maybe the Kalpestrine’s fall had done more than he knew.

  “You said his son has been kidnapped?” Keros asked, gesturing toward Weverton.

  Margaret nodded, letting him change the subject. “When I was in the castle, I found correspondence indicating that the regent had the boy kidnapped. He plans to keep him as a hostage against your good behavior,” she said to Weverton.

  “My good what? No. He trusts me. You are lying.” Then more quietly, “Or perhaps mistaken.”

  She hesitated, then reached into a pocket, and withdrew a folded piece of parchment. She stared at it a moment and tossed it across the table to Weverton. He snatched it up and flattened it out, scanning it quickly.

  “The cracking bastard,” he muttered with quiet violence, his face turning white.

  “No disagreements here,” Margaret said, her voice accusing.

  Weverton’s head snapped up and he glowered at her a moment, then returned to reading the page. He read it twice before slapping his hand down on it. “We must go.”