“You can’t. But by the Stargods I hope you will trust me. Now, is this the only Tambrin in this room?” He gestured to the pillow where she had been singing and working earlier. If only he knew how to give back that joyful song rather than the ingrained bitterness she projected.
The stairs creaked and groaned under the weight of men climbing.
“It’s the only piece I know of. I’ve got to hide it!” She looked anxiously around for concealment. There was only one door in or out of the room and the palace magician would soon block it.
Jack closed his eyes and sent the entire workstation, pillow, frame, stool, and candle deep into the warehouse. The magician wasn’t likely to search there again. Corby flew after it. Jack caught an image from the bird’s mind of plucking hairs from the magician’s head as he swooped past him on the landing.
A screech and a curse confirmed Corby’s mischief.
Jack stepped into the place where the pillow had been to disguise the blank spot in the orderly rows of workstations. Tendrils of raw power licked his feet—extensions of the ley lines he’d glimpsed on the ground floor. Katrina’s workstation sat directly above them. Again he wondered at the source of regenerating power.
“What did you do?” Katrina gasped.
“I hid the evidence.” He smiled and then drew the power into himself and faded into the woodwork. No transport for himself. A little invisibility would allow him to eavesdrop on the magician. The little blue ley lines beneath Katrina’s work place fed him all the power he needed.
As an afterthought he drew Katrina into the circle of his spell. If you move or utter a sound, he’ll find us both, he said into her mind. Then he draped his arm around her shoulders to keep her close and protected—something he’d wanted to do since his vision of a girl with pale, blond hair crying over the loss of her first pillow and bobbins.
Later he’d ask why she’d changed from the distinctive two braids to one.
She squirmed a little under his touch. He increased the pressure of his hand on her shoulder. She stilled, but he sensed her unease.
Filling his physical senses with her scent, her warmth, and the wondrous feel of her body next to his, Jack drew more power into himself in preparation for eavesdropping on the intrusive magician from the palace.
“Search for the Tambrin, search every corner of this building and you will not find any.” Brunix threw the door to the room open with an expansive gesture of his long arms.
“Of course I won’t find it. Your whore has had plenty of time to hide it.” The thin magician sniffed in disdain.
Katrina stiffened beside Jack. He felt her indignation nearly as strong as she. Then her posture wilted in resignation. He pulled her closer, attempting to impart reassurance, respect, whatever emotions she needed right now. She didn’t respond.
“You don’t search, because Tambrin alone is not what you truly seek.” Brunix narrowed his eyes and hunched his shoulders as if he were a vulture examining a particularly tasty morsel.
Jack has seen Zolltarn, king of the Rovers, assume the same pose of intimidation. It usually worked.
“I was sent,” the magician leaned closer to Brunix as if imparting a great confidence, “to find a particularly fine piece of lace woven by the late Tattia Kaantille.”
Katrina jumped. Jack stilled her movement and wondered at the guilt that seemed to pour out of her.
This was the second time the slightly built man had asked for that piece of lace.
Where is it? Jack whispered into Katrina’s mind.
An image of Brunix’s private sitting room, a secret wall panel that only the owner could key. The power engulfing Jack was enough that her thoughts flowed easily back into his mind without a conscious probe on his part.
Jack had yet to meet a lock or secret panel that refused his mental touch. He’d find the lace. If it was big enough, it might suffice as a patch for Shayla. Then he could leave this insufferable city and the sly, unreadable factory owner without delay.
He’d also have to leave Katrina. He was fairly certain she would not follow him to Shayla’s lair.
You may not have it! Katrina’s mind screamed at him.
How could she know he planned to steal it? In opening himself to her thoughts, he must have allowed her free access to his own.
“I know nothing of Tattia Kaantille’s work. All of her designs were left at the palace, along with her pillow and bobbins, when she was dismissed by King Simeon,” Brunix replied to the magician. His aura shot high white bolts of lightning filled with lies.
The glare from those lies left spots before Jack’s physical eyes. He closed off that portion of his magic sight.
“Perhaps you should ask the ghost of Tattia Kaantille. She was a suicide and haunts her daughter here in this workroom,” the owner continued.
The magician blanched and searched the shadowy corners for signs of a hovering spirit. His gaze slid over Jack and Katrina as if they weren’t there.
“Th . . . there is no ghost here.” He shrugged his shoulders as if dismissing his instinctive fear along with the ghost. “When King Simeon gave the girl to you, your duty was to pry her secrets from her. Three years have passed, and the lace is still missing.”
“Nothing was said of secrets at the time. I was told to humiliate and frighten her so that she would be ripe for the coven’s rituals. You are a member of the king’s coven. You must know why he has not had the girl murdered so that her secrets die with her.”
“He thought the lace lost with the body of Tattia Kaantille. But the girl wore it not a moon ago, at Princess Jaranda’s birthday celebration. He saw it then. I saw it and so did our leader. We won’t take action against Katrina Kaantille until the lace is turned over to Simeon or he sees it destroyed.”
“If I were married to the girl, she would have the protection of my tribe. The king would not risk the wrath of the Rovers, I think.”
“A knife across the throat would kill you as surely as the girl. This factory would then be forfeit and His Majesty could search for the lace at his leisure.”
“My premature death would bring Rovers into the city bent on revenge more surely than the death of the girl. No. The king will send his thieves in the dead of night searching for the lace.”
“Where is the shawl?”
“Only the ghost of Tattia Kaantille knows for sure.”
“I . . . I sense no ghost. She isn’t here. But she must be here. A suicide always haunts blood kin for five generations.” The magician crossed his wrists and flapped in the ancient gesture of warding. Then, against royal policy, he invoked the cross of the Stargods. “With my head and heart and the strength of my shoulders I renounce the evil carried by this ghost.” He scuttled out of the room and down the stairs like a beetle frightened by a predatory jackdaw.
Katrina hung her head. One of her tears touched Jack’s wrist.
He sent his magic sight all over the room, followed by every sense he could summon. There are no ghosts here.
Katrina reared her head back so violently she almost shredded the spell of invisibility. M’ma must haunt me. She threw herself into the river. Her spirit cannot pass into a new plane of existence until . . .
I’d know if she were here. There is no trace of a ghost now or the recent past. Perhaps your mother did not suicide.
Katrina was silent a moment while Brunix followed the magician at a more dignified pace. Jack kept her within the private circle of his arms and his spell, marveling at the telepathic rapport he had found with the lacemaker. The intimacy of the moment was deeper and more profound than the lusty satisfaction Rejiia had once offered him.
Perhaps my mother was thrown from the bridge by an agent of her enemy, King Simeon. The spy who dies tonight from torture suspected murder. M’ma was wearing the shawl that night. It was retrieved from the river by the City Watch. I washed the shawl and hid it lest P’pa burn it. It was all I had left of her. M’ma’s body was never recovered.
If the lace had b
een around the woman’s neck and shoulders, then why did it float free while the body sank? Unless Tattia had put up a great deal of resistance before entering the river, loosening the lace. The fall into the icy water had probably sent her into shock so that she couldn’t climb out again. Only Tattia herself and the agents of King Simeon knew for certain how and why the lacemistress had died.
Jack added that piece of information to his list of tasks to complete before he left the city.
Katrina fingered the nearly finished shawl of her own design. Her usual patterns of edgings and insertions did not yet match her mother’s in uniqueness and elegance. This piece surpassed the original. Mostly because the floral centers flowed with the weaving lines of the petals. She doubted any of the lacemakers in the Brunix factory could figure out the convoluted thread paths of the runes in Tattia’s shawl.
But then Tattia had incorporated the runes for a purpose, never meaning the design to be duplicated. If only Katrina knew the message in those runes. After last night’s invasion of the factory by a spying magician, Katrina had no doubt that her only chances of survival were to keep the shawl and its secrets hidden, or to learn those secrets and spread the information to the right people.
Was Jack the right person? Part of her wanted to trust him and accept his friendship. Another part of her didn’t dare.
King Simeon must know the meaning of the runes, or he wouldn’t be pursuing the shawl so diligently now that he knew it had not been destroyed. If he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have prevented the queen from seeing it when M’ma first offered it.
The murmurs of talk from the workroom below her rose to a roar of speculation. Brunix had not seen fit to disclose to his workers why the factory had rocked with arguments and pounding feet last night. Katrina hadn’t bothered to explain her late return to her bed—though most of the lacemakers presumed she had been servicing the owner. Jack had not yet been seen today.
Jack. Those few moments wrapped in his arms and his spell had shaken her carefully-layered suspicion and mistrust. He had allowed her to eavesdrop and learn the depth of Brunix’s involvement with the king.
She wondered briefly if the glimpse Jack had allowed of his own mind was the result of the invisibility spell he had wrapped around them, or another trick to win her confidence. He wanted her help in completing his mission. She knew that much. What kind of help and how dangerous would it be? There had to be danger or he’d have given her more details.
A special piece of lace, made of Tambrin. Was he, too, after the shawl? That piece was made of silk. Wasn’t it?
Katrina needed to examine the piece more closely, looking specifically for evidence of Tambrin spun with the silk. Owner Brunix wasn’t about to remove the shawl from its locked hiding place so soon after the palace magician had searched for it. She didn’t have the key.
Jack might be able to open it with magic.
Her circling thoughts came back to the dark-eyed stranger again and again. She had to trust him if she was to find the answers.
Yet she knew she shouldn’t trust the outland magician who had stopped the ship containing the precious Tambootie seedlings.
He claimed to know her father, to have aided P’pa’s escape from the mines.
Brunix treated him as if he were a cousin—another untrustworthy Rover.
Jack had vowed his mission would deprive Simeon of magic and therefore his power over SeLenicca.
The arguments wove back and forth and around like a giant spiderweb. Katrina was the fly trapped at the center, waiting to be consumed, knowing her death waited just beyond the next heartbeat. Just like the insect trapped in the amber bead on her divider pin.
“I am tired of being a victim!” she shouted to herself, and the Stargods and anyone else within hearing distance. “If I am ever to cleanse myself of this web of lies and deceit, I have to take a risk.”
Jack offered a solution as well as an escape. Brunix promised safety within the confines of slavery. How much longer would he wait to exert his rights over her again? Simeon offered nothing.
“I need Jack,” she told herself. “I can use him as I have been used. I don’t have to trust him.” But I do like him. I felt so complete, so right when he wrapped me in his arms.
Decision made, she touched the single plait of hair hanging halfway down her back. With deft fingers, she rapidly released the tight weaving. A few moments later she had restored the two plaits she had missed for three long years. Assertive action began with simple gestures.
Tonight, when the factory slept and Jack was on duty, she would seek him out and offer her help. Until then, she would do what she did best—finish the shawl.
Rejiia watched through tired eyes as the Rover wet nurse fed her newborn son.
“Your son is strong but very small, born two moons early,” the young woman commented on the infant’s vigorous suckling.
Rejiia smiled in satisfaction. Too many plans relied on her strength and agility. The last two moons of pregnancy would have hindered her actions.
Old Erda, the Rover matriarch and mistress of all herbal medicines and the best midwife in the three kingdoms, wasn’t available to assist her. But one of her apprentices had come with the tribe of Rovers that lingered on the outskirts of Queen’s City. The bitter herbs Rejiia had drunk last night had forced the child into early birth.
“Your tribe will protect my son until I claim him,” Rejiia commanded the young wet nurse.
“We will guard him as one of our own,” the Rover woman murmured. She did not lift her gaze to meet Rejiia’s.
“Only until I can claim him!” Rejiia hadn’t the strength to compel the woman, so she pushed as much authority into her voice as possible.
“We will welcome you when you claim him.” This time the woman met Rejiia’s look in a token promise of compliance.
“Your name, girl. Tell me your name so that I may find you again.”
“I am called Erda.”
“Nonsense. There is only one Erda.”
“Each of us who nurtures a child can claim the title Erda.”
“Your true name, then. What name were you given at birth?”
“No outlander may know my true name.”
“Enough of this evasion. Give me your name so that I may find you when the time is right to reclaim my son.” Panic generated enough energy to draw a tiny spell into her words. Erda squirmed in resistance.
“Ask for Kestra. All of the tribes of Zolltarn know of Kestra.”
“Good. The prematurity of the boy’s birth is our secret. No one in Coronnan must suspect that my husband, Marnak, is incapable of fathering a child. By law we are still married and the child legitimate.”
“That belief suits the needs of the Rovers.”
“Then take the child. I will inform the king that his son is stillborn.”
For now I must garner my strength so that I am ready for the Solstice Ritual.
I will use the power of the Solstice to kill Darville through the lingering wound in his arm. Coronnan expects him to die from that witch burn. I shall hasten the process and step in to claim the throne for me and my son.
I am too weak at the moment to investigate the disturbance in the magical energies I sense within the city. I need a familiar to aid my search. Jackdaws aplenty nest near the palace. More intelligent than mere crows, their ability to mimic will develop into limited speech through the bonding spells. I will subvert one to my will. Tomorrow. I must sleep now.
Chapter 31
‘Ley lines don’t exist singly. Nor do they appear spontaneously,” Jack mused as he wandered Queen’s City shortly after dawn.
Cloaked in the face and body of the slightly built palace magician, he peered easily at the land beneath his feet with every sense available to him. His magic had recharged during the time he had spent standing above the pocket of power in the workroom. A relief from the weeks of weakened abilities.
Burned out ley lines rotted at every street intersection. If the land di
d not heal soon, the old channels would collapse, taking building foundations and street paving with them. Jack foresaw a shift in the riverbed and upheaval in the hills behind the city. Death and chaos would follow.
Simeon deserved whatever destruction the Stargods visited upon him. The innocents of the city didn’t.
Everywhere he saw the sings of decay, heightened by the short-sighted belief that the land’s resources were unlimited and meant to be exploited. When the belief proved false, no one knew how to rectify matters. Abandoned shops and houses. Dirt and crumbling mortar strewn through the streets from the collapse of a warehouse, and no one with enough energy to clear it away. No refuse for dogs to scavenge. And everywhere, the haunted eyes of the hungry and the hopeless citizens. Only the nobles seemed unaware of the lifeblood of the country bleeding into the river along with the land that no longer had trees to hold it back.
Having lost all sense of the Kardia, SeLenicca, its people, and culture were dying. Only the export of lace kept the economy alive. Lace was not enough to employ an entire nation.
Nowhere in his day-long search of the city did Jack discover any active ley lines. The city was as dead magically as it was economically. Shayla was King Simeon’s only source of power. Did he and the members of his coven know how to combine the magic and make the power grow well beyond anything a solitary magician could throw?
Jack already knew he was incapable of gathering the dragon magic. After last night’s confrontation with the palace magician, he had little hope he could complete his mission and escape without detection. In a magic duel, Jack’s only chance of survival was one grouping of hair-fine ley lines beneath the warehouse.
If only he knew why the ley lines had sprung up beneath Katrina’s workstation and nowhere else. Once he mastered that puzzle, he might be able to force more lines to grow and feed his magic.
Katrina was the answer. Katrina and the lace she wove for the love of the shimmering threads and the patterns that bloomed beneath her hands while she sang little tunes in the dead of night; not the lace she made for the owner to exploit.
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 94
