by Hilari Bell
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” she said thoughtfully. “Clearly, the first thing we need is magical help, not only to open this gate thing, but also to find Tobin once you get in.”
“Yes, I’d realized that. I don’t suppose you know anyone who can work that kind of magic.”
“Of course, dear one, and so do you. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it, for Timeon admitted he was an expert on gates.”
“Tim—”
“Timeon Lazur.” She smiled, the first time she’d done so since Jeriah came in. “I’ve known him for years. He was an ambitious young priest when I was lady’s maid to the Hierarch’s mother.”
This was one notion Jeriah had to dispel. “Master Lazur won’t help. He wants to keep the sorceress and the goblins in the Otherworld. He won’t open a gate, or permit anyone else to do it. He wouldn’t even tell me where he’s stored the spell notes that could keep Tobin alive.”
“Then he’ll have to change his mind. I’ll take care of that—all you need to do is be ready to go after Tobin when I’ve set it up. In fact, I’ll write to Timeon right now. If he’s going to be stubborn, this may take some time, and we don’t have much to spare.”
“You’re not listening. He won’t—”
“He told you he wouldn’t. But Timeon Lazur can always be persuaded…or pressured, if need be.” She paused on the way to her writing desk and patted his shoulder. “You just have to know his weakness.”
“What weakness?” Jeriah asked nervously. Confiding in his mother had seemed like a good idea a few minutes ago, but now…
“You know the answer to that already, dear one,” his mother said. “What’s the one thing Timeon cares about more than anything else in the world?”
Jeriah’s alarm grew. “The relocation. But how can you use that—”
She rose and went to her desk, picking up a quill. “You can leave that to me. Although it may take some…Hmm. Never mind. I’ll manage.”
Jeriah shivered. His mother had always preferred to keep her schemes to herself—some were even good schemes. She was beautiful, clever, and ruthless. But Master Lazur was more clever, much more ruthless, and beauty didn’t matter to him.
On the other hand, matching wits with his mother might keep the priest from noticing what Jeriah was up to.
Thank the Bright Gods he hadn’t told her about his plans.
“Very well. I’m glad you can persuade him—I had no idea who I could find to open a gate for me.”
“Don’t worry.” She was already writing. “I can handle Timeon.”
Jeriah doubted it. “That’s settled then. But what are we going to tell Father?”
The quick pen paused. “We’d better not tell him anything. He’s a very good man, but sometimes, in matters like this, it doesn’t work out well if one is too good. Besides, I’m afraid he might not entirely understand the situation.”
“He never does,” said Jeriah wearily.
“Well, dear one, it’s a little unreasonable to expect him to understand, when you consider that you and I and Tobin have all been lying to him from the very start.”
She returned to her letter, and Jeriah went to his own room. He asked one of the maids to send up a meal, claiming he wanted to go to bed early since he was tired from the long ride. He was tired, but he wanted to make contact with the goblins as soon as he could.
The woman accepted his request without a blink, though four in the afternoon was far too early for bed. His father had chosen to be alone with his grief, and Senna was probably avoiding everyone right now.
His meal finished, Jeriah lay tossing on his bed, but eventually the fatigue of the journey caught up with him and he dozed. A good thing, too. He had plans for tonight.
Jeriah crept down the stairs, automatically avoiding the second and seventh steps, which creaked. He wondered if every child who grew up in this house learned that trick. Tobin had shown him the noisy steps when he was very young—though Jeriah had come up with most of the pranks that made the knowledge useful.
The banked embers in the big hearth provided enough light for Jeriah to find his way around the kitchen. He took a large bowl and filled it from a jar in the pantry, where the milk had been left for the cream to rise. He hoped none of the servants would be blamed for the theft, but the cows were let out to graze at night, and it would take too long to catch and milk one.
How long would it take the goblins to discover the bowl?
Jeriah carried the milk out to the vegetable garden behind the house and set it near some bushes.
The night was crisp and still. Jeriah started to shiver, even as the quiet soothed him. He thought about returning to the house for his cloak but decided against it—the goblins might come while he was gone. Besides, the chill would keep him awake.
The gardener’s shed he’d chosen for his hideout held a pile of empty sacks. Jeriah dumped several on the floor and wrapped another around his shoulders. Then he propped the door open so he could see the bowl. He sat down on the sacks to wait.
As the night grew colder, Jeriah was forced to use more of the sacks to cover himself so the goblins wouldn’t be warned away by his chattering teeth. Clouds drifted over the moon, leaving the bowl in shadow. A rabbit hopped into the lettuce bed, nibbled for a time, and departed.
Jeriah’s mood passed from anticipation to boredom to weary resignation. He had napped that afternoon, so he was surprised when a wave of drowsiness washed over him. He yawned and leaned his head against the wall, just for a moment.
He woke with a start and lay blinking. A rooster crowed—that was what had roused him. Why was he lying on a pile of sacks? Memory returned, and he sat up and looked out. Dawn light spilled through the garden. Even at this distance, he could see that the bowl was empty.
“Dung!”
They’d bespelled him! Those cursed goblins had bespelled him again, and this whole night had been wasted. But at least they’d found the milk, so he supposed he had made contact, after a fashion. Tomorrow night he’d speak to them. Jeriah rubbed his face, and the blanket slid from his shoulders. Blanket?
It was a horse blanket from the stables—wool, which was why he wasn’t freezing. But Jeriah hadn’t brought it. And he certainly hadn’t brought the cushion from his mother’s solarium.
Jeriah had heard the old stories, that if you did favors for the goblins they’d repay you, but he’d written them off as nursery tales.
“Repay you with spells and deceit!” He said it aloud, in case some goblin was listening. Never mind. Tomorrow he’d be ready for them.
He got the blanket back to the stable without waking the grooms, but the cook’s helper almost caught him replacing the hastily rinsed bowl. At least putting the pillow back wasn’t a problem—his mother wouldn’t be up for hours.
Jeriah stripped out of his tunic and crawled into his own bed, grateful for the softness of his mattress after a night on the rough sacks. He was just dozing off when his father knocked on the door.
INTERLUDE
Makenna
“…ARE THE ONLY WILLOWS growing anywhere near us…”
“…potato roots not only taste good, they’re good for…”
“…if you go disturbing their ground, willows won’t…”
“…those potato roots grow fast, too! They’re…”
Makenna drew in a breath to shout down the whole mob, but before she could speak…
“Be quiet, all of you. Mistress Makenna can’t hear if you’re talking at the same time.”
Makenna stared. She hadn’t known the lordling could produce that commanding voice. He hadn’t even raised it, but the squabbling goblins fell silent as he came forward and knelt between the Greeners, who wanted to plant potato roots in the stream’s marshy bend, and the Makers, who wanted to use the willows growing there for baskets.
She felt a tug on her britches, and looked down into the lumpy gray face of Harcu, the chief Stoner. “Rock funny,” his deep voice rumbled. “Not right.”
>
Makenna sighed. “I’m sure it’s not. Nothing else seems to be. But you’re going to have to wait your turn.”
“One at a time,” Tobin added firmly.
Cogswhallop would have threatened to crack a few heads to emphasize the order, but Cogswhallop wasn’t there—and his absence was like a cut still seeping blood.
No one knew what had kept her small lieutenant from following her through the gate, though the absence of his family was a pretty good clue. He’d been right beside her, organizing the frantic exodus as she cast the gate spell. He’d been at her side for the last six years.
Some thought they’d been captured by the soldiers, but Makenna didn’t believe it. Cogswhallop was more than a match for Lazur and all his men—even Daroo was. No, Cogswhallop was safe in the Realm—no doubt working to rejoin her, just as she was trying to figure out how to open a gate to reach him.
But in the meanwhile, Tobin was doing a pretty good job of taking his place.
Makenna had assigned Miggy as her second-in-command. He was slowly growing comfortable in the role when things were peaceful, but he wasn’t happy about it when trouble broke out. And that was when Tobin took up the slack.
A small, petty part of her resented a human stepping into Cogswhallop’s shoes…but the rest of her was deeply grateful that he did it so well.
“Harcu,” she said, “if the rock here’s not right, then you’ll either have to make do or get good rock somewhere else, because those foundations need to go in. You’re doing a fine job. I don’t want you stopping now. As for the rest of you”—she glared at all of them, impartially—“one reason we settled here was because we didn’t want a lot of marsh nearby. Food is a priority.”
The Greeners smirked.
“Food won’t do you much good,” one of the Makers snapped, “if you don’t have baskets to store it in. What are you going to do when all that grain you’re planting is ready to harvest? Put it in your pockets? We—”
“We need baskets too,” Makenna agreed. “And willows can’t be grown in a minute. So like it or not, you’re all going to share that marsh. The Greeners will plant as near to the willows as they can without disturbing them, but they’ll leave paths through their root beds so the Makers can harvest the willows. And the Makers will stay on those paths! That way…”
CHAPTER 4
Jeriah
“SEE THESE ROOTS?” HIS FATHER held out a young cornstalk, roots attached. “White and firm, like they should be. Last year we had too much water in this field and lost half the crop. The first sign of the problem was in the roots. You can’t just pay attention to the part of the plant you can see—you have to…”
Jeriah’s father had been going on like that all morning. He yawned.
“Am I boring you, Jeriah?”
His mouth snapped shut. “No, sir. It’s just…I’m sorry, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
His father’s lips tightened, deepening the lines around his mouth. “I’m sorry, son. I shouldn’t have…I didn’t get much sleep either.” He knelt to replant the corn sprout, hiding his face.
The speed with which his father had set about training his new heir would have hurt, if his grief for Tobin hadn’t showed so clearly. Jeriah’s father had always considered him…not incompetent, not really. Just lightweight. Not to be taken seriously. Unreliable, compared to his sensible older brother. Since Jeriah didn’t want the estate, that suited him fine. But until Tobin came back he was stuck with it, so he might as well do his best.
“Um, why did you let so much water into this field? I thought old Woder measured inflow to the last drop.” He gestured at the gate in the low dike that held back the river. His great-great-grandfather had married a woman from the wetlands and built the dikes and gates, creating acres of fertile land in what used to be the river’s flood plain.
“We were trying to water this field with a ditch from the next gate down. We still are, in fact, and judging by these roots we’re doing better this year. Come with me and I’ll show you why. This is something you should know about.”
His father strode off toward the nearest sluice gate and Jeriah followed, slipping in the muddy furrows.
“Look at the wood of this gate, Jeriah. What do you see?”
“Well…” He examined it, fishing for an answer. “It’s damp. It’s…Wait a minute. It shouldn’t be that wet. It’s rotting on the other side, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” His father eyed him with satisfaction, and Jeriah felt a flicker of pride. It was the first question he’d answered right.
“It’s not just the gate,” his father went on. “There’s also seepage through the dike. See here?” He led Jeriah to a mud puddle twenty feet from the gate. To Jeriah it looked like all the other puddles he’d seen that morning. If you can’t make an intelligent comment, ask a question.
“Is it dangerous, sir?” He gestured to a cluster of cottages in the midst of the low fields. As their campfire had burned low, Todder Yon had told Jeriah something of the sorceress’ history—including the tale of how she’d flooded her own village.
“Of course it’s dangerous,” his father said. “Oh, not to people’s lives or I’d evacuate the place. The houses are higher than they look—even if the whole dike gave way, there’d only be a few feet of water over the floors of the lowest buildings. And that’s now, with the river at full flow. The higher buildings would be left on an island, but the tenants could wade ashore. The fields would be lost, though, along with the crops they’re carrying.”
“But why haven’t you…ah, I thought winter was the best time to repair dikes.”
“It is.” An expression that held both pain and pride swept over his father’s face. “And I’d have done it, except Master Averas has told us that we’ll have to leave this land forever next spring. The spring after that at the latest. I am ordered to move all my people into the north.”
He started back to the horses, with his son slogging behind. “Jeriah, I’ve been meaning to ask you…” The hesitation was so unlike his father that it captured Jeriah’s attention.
“Sir?”
“The Hierarch is the Sunlord, chosen of the Seven Bright Gods, but the priests who serve him are only men. I’ve been wondering…You fought the desert barbarians yourself, last winter, and you’ve always had a mind of your own. Do you think this relocation is necessary?”
Jeriah had never actually fought the barbarians. He’d only patrolled with a troop for several months before the conspirators had recruited him. But he’d heard the stories of howling mobs, white as ghosts, swarming out of the flying sand. Of the gutted remains of Southland farms. Of human bones in the refuse heaps of barbarian camps. Some of those stories had come from his brother. “Yes, sir. It has to be.”
“Ah.” His father’s shoulders slumped, then straightened again. “Well, that’s the other reason I didn’t repair the dike. Before we leave, I’m going to open all the gates and flood the land. They’ll get nothing I can keep from them.”
His father might be short on forgiveness, but he’d never lacked courage. This probably wasn’t the best time, but Jeriah didn’t have a lot of time.
“Master Lazur gave me leave for a month, but with the problems involved in the relocation, everyone is needed. I was wondering if I could return sooner.”
His father frowned. “I think you should leave Master Lazur’s service. You’re my heir now—and through no fault of your own, you haven’t been trained to run the estate. I should have taught you along with Tob—your brother, but you weren’t interested in farming and…Well, you have a lot of catching up to do.”
Not if I can help it. “There’ll be time for me to learn all those things when we’re resettled in the north. Besides, I think the woodland soil is different. Half of what you’re teaching me might be useless there.” He saw his father’s lips tighten and continued hastily. “Serving the Hierarch and the Realm is what I am trained for. I’d like to do it, at least till this crisis is past.”<
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His father sighed. “I’ll think about it.”
Jeriah knew better than to press, and they mounted the horses and rode on in silence. His father noticed every bug, on every leaf, in every field. Jeriah could barely tell the wheat sprouts from the potatoes. Demon’s teeth! He hadn’t been trained for this. It was Tobin who loved the land, who cared which worms ate the barley. Jeriah had dreamed of serving the Realm, of doing something brave and worthy. Now Tobin, who’d wanted to stay home and plant crops, was a hero, and Jeriah was stuck looking at muddy roots.
The brightness of raw lumber caught his eye. “Why did you fence off the east wood?” Jeriah was only mildly curious—the east wood was one of their best hunting grounds—but his father’s face darkened.
“It’s not our fence. I sold that land.”
“Why? The amount of land we own now will determine how much we’re granted in the north!”
“The money was needed. It’s not your…” His father stopped and shook his head. “I’m sorry. As the heir it is your business. I sold the wood, several fields, and some of the land on the east bank to bribe the tribunal to spare your brother’s life.”
The silence echoed. He should tell him the truth. Jeriah owed it to Tobin, as well as his father, to tell the truth. But the angry grief in the old man’s face froze Jeriah’s tongue, and telling that particular truth required more courage than he possessed. Perhaps he wasn’t cut out to be a true knight after all.
“How much did it cost Father to bribe the tribunal?”
His mother looked up from her embroidery, calm in spite of Jeriah’s tempestuous entrance. “I don’t know the exact sum. He sold a lot of land. But I gather you’ve discovered that.”
“How could you let him do it? This place is like…like part of his own body! How could you let him hack off pieces, and not tell him that it was me and not Tobin?”
