“Transformed?” Marcus repeated. “Is that possible?”
Zyll chuckled. “I don’t know. It’s never actually been done. I created Xerxes when I started growing old and needed both a friend and a support. But as the years went on I thought it would be cruel if he should die when I did. Wood and flesh are both living substances. It didn’t seem too much a stretch to transform one into the other.”
“But I thought manipulating organics is—you know—dangerous.”
“Of course I couldn’t manage it without doing myself in,” Zyll replied. “So the transformation will have to wait until I’m already dead, using whatever life force may still linger.”
Marcus tried to imagine Xerxes as a real bird but couldn’t conjure the picture in his mind.
Zyll laughed again and tousled Marcus’s hair. “Never mind,” he said. “It isn’t anything to worry about now. Go to bed. We’ll leave after breakfast. I’m sure your friends will be anxious to hear all your news.” He turned the door handle to enter his room, but there was one more thing Marcus had to know.
“Wait, Grandfather,” said Marcus, his courage almost leaving him. “A few nights ago, I saw you give something to a Hestorian, one with markings on his face.”
Zyll’s body stiffened. Marcus could see his knuckles turn white as he clutched the door handle. But Marcus continued.
“Who is he? What were you doing?”
Zyll’s expression turned hard, though not angry. Marcus had never seen that look in Zyll’s eyes before. It frightened him.
“That is one secret I pray to the gods you will never need to know,” said Zyll. And with that, Zyll slipped into his room and closed the door behind him.
Forty-two
Marcus waited until he heard Zyll turn the lock in his door before heading back down the corridor. Zyll had told him to do what he thought was best, and that’s exactly what he would do.
He passed several armed sentries, one at every door, as he made his way through the lower level of the Fortress. Kelvin was determined not to let the Agoran rebels get inside again. Maybe Marcus shouldn’t worry about his brother. With all these guards around, Kelvin was far safer than Fredric must have been. Still, he deserved to know how their grandfather died. Secrets had nearly destroyed Marcus and Kelvin’s relationship during their quest eight months ago. There would be no secrets between them ever again.
Marcus didn’t want to go back to the dining room. Kelvin and Jayson were probably still arguing over dinner, and what Marcus had to say was private, anyway. He would go instead to Kelvin’s council chambers and wait for him there.
Other than the sentries, the interior of the Fortress was quiet. Most of the servants had already retired to their rooms for the night. Marcus hurried across the vast entry hall toward the east alcove where the offices were located. He had made it halfway when he suddenly had the feeling that he was not alone. He turned and looked behind him, but there was no one besides the guard standing at the Fortress’s main door. The light from several oil lamps left the corners of the room hidden in darkness. Someone could easily conceal himself in one.
This is silly, Marcus thought. I’m letting my mind play tricks on me. Still, he walked the rest of the way as fast as he could without actually running.
The door to Kelvin’s council chambers stood just inside a narrow alcove. To Marcus’s surprise, the sconces on the wall were not lit. The alcove was dark except for a weak glow from the lanterns in the great hall. He had expected to find a guard here, too, but the alcove was empty—or was it?
Near the door to Kelvin’s chambers, Marcus saw a large, dark clump of something on the floor. He approached cautiously and touched it with his foot. An arm fell forward, hitting the floor with a dull thump. Marcus stepped back, his breath quickening. The dark clump was a sentry. In the dim light, Marcus couldn’t tell whether he was unconscious or dead.
Behind him, Marcus heard the sound of footsteps, which stopped abruptly.
“Hello?” Marcus called out, hoping it was one of the other guards. “There’s a man here,” he said. “I think he’s hurt!”
When no one replied, Marcus realized once again his imagination was running away with him. But he did need to find help for the sentry. He was about to leave when he heard a new sound coming from inside the chamber: an unmistakable rattle as if something had fallen and rolled across the floor.
Marcus stepped over the guard’s body and took hold of the door handle. Slowly he turned it, pushing open the door just an inch. Candlelight spilled through the narrow crack and into the alcove. Marcus saw now that the sentry’s eyes were open, staring dully up at nothing. He was most certainly dead. And Marcus suspected that whoever was inside the room had done it.
Pushing the door open a little farther, Marcus stepped inside. Large tapestries hung from floor to ceiling against the walls. Three stories above, the stained-glass ceiling looked like a patchwork of black and gray. Charred remains of a log stood cold in the fireplace, though six candles burned in an ornate candelabrum beside Kelvin’s desk. On the floor lay an ink bottle, dark liquid trailing from it like a tail. This must be what had made the noise. Marcus bent to pick it up. The glass bottle felt warm to the touch.
The air in the room was chill. So why would the bottle be so warm? Someone must have been holding it, Marcus thought, but who?
As he set the bottle back on the desk, he noticed movement from the corner of his eye. A tapestry fluttered ever so slightly. Marcus’s heart raced. He reached for his knife but then remembered he had left it in his room, for he had thought he was just going to talk to Kelvin. What would he have needed it for? He reached for the tapestry with trembling fingers and jerked it aside, but the only thing behind it was a bare wall.
All of a sudden, something heavy hit him from behind. Sharp pain exploded across his shoulders, and Marcus’s face smashed into the wall. He felt drops of hot blood trickle onto his lips. Licking them, he tasted copper, and he wondered whether the loud crack he’d heard had been his back breaking or something else. He turned and saw Kelvin’s chair in pieces behind him on the floor. Someone had thrown it at him! He had only a second to think before something else came flying at him, but this time it was a man.
The man yelled. Marcus caught the glint of a blade in his hand just before it came down on him. Marcus twisted away just in time, the blade grating instead against the stone wall. But the man did not stop. He sliced his dagger wildly in every direction. Marcus jumped and slid his way across the room, doing his best to avoid the attacks. The man was slender, almost frail looking, yet was surprisingly fast and strong. He lunged at Marcus, not with the dagger, but with a set of bloodstained claws extended for the kill. It wasn’t a man at all, Marcus realized. It was an Agoran.
Marcus grabbed the candelabrum. As he swung it in an arc, the candles flew off. Two went out as they hit the floor, but the other four still burned, casting long, unnatural shadows onto the tapestries. One lit the corner of a tapestry on fire, the flames soon licking the woven patterns like a hungry snake. The candelabrum hit the attacker with a force that would have knocked most men to their knees, but this one didn’t even flinch. When the Agoran took hold of it, Marcus expected him to yank it out of his hands. Instead he thrust it forward, pushing Marcus off balance. Marcus fell onto his back, sending a fresh tremor of pain through him.
A second later, the attacker was on top of Marcus, holding the point of a blade to his throat. Damp tendrils of long, shaggy hair clung to his face. His pupils, narrow like a cat’s, peered at Marcus, recognition slowly dawning. The Agoran and Marcus stared at each other, both remembering the day months earlier when they had first met.
Just then the door to the chamber flew open. A guard rushed in, his sword raised. Behind him came Kelvin and Jayson. The Agoran leapt off Marcus and crossed the room in half a breath’s time. The guard ran after him, but the Agoran tore the burning tapestry free from the wall and flung it at him. The guard screamed in pain as fire engulfed his uniform.
The tapestry dropped to the floor, the flames trapping the Agoran at the back of the room. Marcus managed to roll clear of it, though he felt his skin blistering with the heat and smelled the guard’s scorched flesh.
Jayson ripped the burning fabric from the guard’s body as Kelvin picked up his fallen sword. Kelvin slashed at the tapestry, trying to make a path through the fire. As he broke through, Marcus looked up to see what would happen next, but to his and everyone’s surprise, the Agoran was gone.
Forty-three
What do you think you were doing?” shouted Kelvin, turning on Marcus. “There’s a dead man in the hall, and my private chambers are in ruin!”
Marcus swallowed hard. He looked to Jayson for help, but he was busy tending to the injured guard.
“I came here looking for you. The guard was already dead when I got here.”
“I could have guessed that much,” said Kelvin. He lifted the blackened remains of the tapestry with the tip of his sword and flung it aside. Then he went to the back wall and brushed his hands over the paneling. “What I want to know is why you let that Agoran scum escape.”
“What?” Marcus stood and faced Kelvin. His shoulder throbbed from where he’d been hit with the chair, but he did his best not to show it. “I barely escaped! If you hadn’t come in when you did, he would have killed me.”
Kelvin glared sharply at Marcus. “You know the trouble the rebels have caused. We’ve taken every precaution to stop them, and then you come face to face with one! But instead of calling for help, or better yet, capturing him yourself, you let him get away!”
“Let him get away?” Marcus was getting angrier by the moment. “How do you think I should have stopped him?”
Kelvin’s rage was so obvious now, his teeth were clenched and his face pale. “Magic!” he shouted. “Or have you suddenly forgotten you’re an enchanter’s apprentice?”
Kelvin’s words cut deeper into Marcus than any blade ever could. Magic. Yes, he could have used magic against the Agoran, and under the circumstances he should have used it, no matter how much pain it caused him. The realization that he had failed his brother, failed in the very purpose of his visit here, sickened him. What must Kelvin think of him now? Worse yet, what would Zyll think of him?
Across the room, Jayson finished wrapping a strip torn from his own tunic around the guard’s burned arm. He helped the guard to the chamber door where two additional guards now waited. One was dragging away the dead sentry. The other took the injured guard’s arm around his neck, bracing him as he walked.
“Take him to his room and call for the doctor,” Jayson instructed. “Then send someone for the other man’s family. They’ll want to tend to him themselves.”
Once the guards had gone, Jayson turned to his sons. “So the rebel escaped,” he said, kicking at the broken chair. “How?”
“He just vanished right before our eyes,” Kelvin answered. “He must have used some hidden door in the wall.”
Marcus suddenly felt as though his legs might buckle. He leaned against Kelvin’s desk for support.
“What is it?” asked Jayson. “Are you hurt?”
The hidden door!
The pain in his shoulder, his bloodied face, even the ever-present ache in his chest was nothing compared to what he felt now. For a moment, he almost convinced himself that the reason he didn’t use magic against the Agoran was because he was afraid, but that wasn’t true—not completely.
He looked from Jayson to Kelvin and back again, shame burning inside of him.
“I didn’t use magic,” he said, “because I recognized the Agoran who’s been attacking the Fortress. His name is Eliha,” said Marcus. “He’s probably been using that tunnel to get into the Fortress all along.”
On the day the Hestorians invaded Dokur eight months ago, Kaië had led him through the tunnel into this very room. They had freed Bryn from the prison, freed Eliha as well, and then escaped the same way they had come in. Marcus was about to explain all this when Chancellor Prost appeared at the door.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, taking in the damaged room at a glance. “I demand to know what’s happened!”
“An Agoran rebel attacked Marcus,” Kelvin explained. “We think he escaped through a secret door. Do you know anything about that?”
Prost gave an irritated humph before crossing the room and pressing his hand against the wood trim. A section of the wall swung open, revealing a dark hollow beyond.
“No one but those closest to Fredric ever knew about this,” said Prost. “If an Agoran has been using it, then it’s fair to say it isn’t a secret anymore.”
Jayson came up behind Prost and Kelvin and peered into the tunnel. “So,” he said, rubbing at his chin, “which one of us is going to go catch him?”
Forty-four
The Dragon’s Head Inn stood in a part of Dokur that still carried the scars of the invasion. Despite blackened roofs and patched-up walls, business was good, perhaps too good. Here was where the poor, the nonhumans, and the criminals gathered. Jayson knew it was the most likely place to find someone who did not wish to be found.
When Jayson entered the inn, his senses were repelled by the heavy odors of human sweat, spirits, and filth. No one even glanced up to take notice of the cloaked visitor, and Jayson took advantage of this fact to study each face in the crowded room.
At the tables, men haggled over pyramids of upturned shot glasses. Others stood by the fireplace gazing dreamily or unhappily into the flames. Still others sat hunched over the bar, their hands clenched around half-empty glasses of ale. Jayson searched for the one face here that would stand out from all the others.
He walked toward the bar and pulled back his hood. The clatter in the room fell silent as, one by one, all eyes turned to him.
“You, barkeeper,” he said, leaning one elbow atop the bar, “tell me—any Agorans here tonight?”
The barkeeper, a young man with straight, dark hair down to his shoulders and eyes equally dark and wide, wiped a glass with a towel and set it on the bar in front of Jayson.
“I don’t judge any man by his looks,” he said, “only his wallet. What’ll it be?”
Jayson plunked a coin onto the bar and waited while the keeper filled his glass. Seeing that he wasn’t a threat, the men in the room went back to their haggling and drinking.
“I’ve heard rumors that someone’s been causing problems at the Fortress,” Jayson said, “and that the new king has a ransom out for the man responsible.”
“Aye,” said the keeper, “some of the servants come here on their days off and tell us the tales. Just before Fredric died, mysterious things started happening. Guards found with their throats slit, the treasury ransacked, messages scrawled in blood on the walls. Two of the navy’s ships were burned and sunk.”
“That can’t all be the work of one man,” said Jayson, wiping the condensation from his glass with his thumb. “Can it?”
“Who’s to say?” answered an older gentleman sitting beside Jayson. “You’re not among the king’s most loyal subjects here.” The man burst out laughing and swayed so far to one side that Jayson thought he might fall off his barstool. But instead, the man dropped his head onto the bar and fell asleep.
At the far end of the bar, a figure dressed in a gray cloak stood up and turned toward the staircase at the back of the room. Jayson eyed him for a moment. Something about the smoothness of his movements made Jayson stand up, too.
“You there!” shouted Jayson. In response, the man bolted with such speed that it took Jayson by surprise. The man leapt over the railing onto the staircase and fled up to the second floor. As he reached the landing, his cloak fell away, revealing an Agoran face. Jayson was after him now, taking the stairs three steps at a time. He followed the Agoran down the hall to an open window. The Agoran climbed agilely onto the window frame, preparing to jump out. But Jayson grabbed him by the neck with both hands and flung him backward onto the floor.
“Are you Eliha?
” demanded Jayson. “Are you the one who’s been breaking into the Fortress?”
The Agoran spit in Jayson’s face. Jayson yanked him off the floor and threw him across the hall. The Agoran hit the wall and slid to the floor where he sat, staring icily at Jayson.
Jayson drew his sword and pressed the tip of the blade into the Agoran’s throat.
“Do you know who I am?” shouted Jayson.
“Everyone knows who you are, half-breed,” said the Agoran. “You are a traitor to your people.”
“There is a price on your head, and I’ve a mind to collect it!” said Jayson. “Your little games have cost our people their lands. Because of you, there may be civil war.”
“Because of me?” said the Agoran, laughing a hollow laugh. “I don’t see any scars on your back, Jayson. Where were you when your people were crushed under Fredric’s whip? He drove our families to the swamps, forced our brothers and sons to wallow like pigs in his mine. He stole our dignity! And you say I have cost the Agorans their land?”
“Fredric gave you your freedom.”
“He gave us nothing! This new king will never give us what we deserve. We have to take it! I fight for more than just a bit of land. My cause will win us back our pride!”
“No cause can justify murder, Eliha.”
“You murdered us all when you married the princess, Lady Ivanore. You abandoned us that very day, Jayson. How can you justify that?”
Jayson had had enough. He punched Eliha square in the face. The Agoran went limp.
“Justify that!” said Jayson, rubbing his sore knuckles.
Forty-five
The kitchen was hot and steamy from the many vats of soups and sauces simmering over the red-hot iron stoves. Marcus carried two sacks of potatoes into the pantry and emptied them into the root bin. A cloud of dry, moldy dust coated his apron, and he flapped the empty sacks, trying to clear the air. His shoulder felt better today, but he couldn’t hide the bruise on his face. He had to tell Zyll what had happened and, of course, had to endure two lectures: one from Zyll and one from Xerxes. He was glad when they were called to work, because it meant the issue could not be discussed further.
The Last Enchanter Page 11
