The man knew something important.
Following in Brunix’s wake was easier than forcing a new path through the crowd. Jack itched to remove the parchment from its hiding place. The factory owner kept a proprietary hand over the concealed pocket. He’d notice if the crackling bulk suddenly disappeared.
Very slowly, Jack allowed his delusion to shift. Bit by bit, he absorbed the face and demeanor of a nondescript man he passed in the wide temple porch, shedding his old disguise in the same order. When he plunged after Brunix into the bright spring sunshine, no trace of his previous delusion remained.
Brunix stood unmoving on the top step, blinking rapidly until his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. Jack used those two moments of distraction well. He gathered the tattered remnants of extra magic left in his body and concentrated on the copied runes.
The single sheet of parchment weighed a ton inside his mind. It refused to budge from the fold of fabric that protected it.
Jack pushed his magic deep, struggled, and sweated. The cords of his neck stood out with the strain of moving the burden.
Brunix blinked and twisted his neck in preparation for moving down the two dozen stone slabs that formed the steps.
Near panic that his quarry might escape, Jack “grabbed” the parchment with a spell and dumped it into his own pocket.
The factory owner stepped down into the milling throng.
Jack’s knees turned weak in fatigue and reaction to the hasty spell. Barely able to keep a delusion of light-colored hair on his head, he sought a quiet corner at the edge of the open square before the temple.
Very soon, he must return to the factory and stand above Katrina’s little web of ley lines. A good meal would work wonders at restoring his talent, too. But first a brief nap beneath that clump of bushes.
Eyes still on Brunix’s progress across the broad square, Jack edged toward his chosen refuge. The tall man strode in the direction of the factory, never turning around or looking back to see if he was being followed.
Still five stairs from the paved square, Jack caught sight of a pair of men in palace-guard-gray scuttling behind Brunix. A knife flashed in the sunlight.
“No!” Jack screamed as he dashed across the square. King Simeon couldn’t succeed with this murder. If Brunix died, then the sorcerer-king could confiscate the factory and all his property, including Katrina.
The men in gray disappeared, as if they had never been behind their victim.
Screams erupted from the throats of a hundred people. A wide circle formed around the crumpled body. Blood stained the fire-green robe and black tunic an ugly and lethal red.
Jack skidded to a halt beside the groaning figure. Cautiously he extended his hand to the carved bone of the knife hilt. The outline of a winged god glared at him, defying him to remove the knife from the wound.
He’d seen that outline before. Lord Krej had created a huge stained glass window of Simurgh in the great hall of his castle. Not true glass, but a magical simulation formed of blood and the volcanic sands of Hanassa.
Jack’s hand shook as it hovered above the instrument of death. A ritual knife. Wielded by the coven.
Frantically, Jack sought a healing spell, anything to slow the bleeding, repair enough of the damage to keep Brunix alive.
“Get a healer!” he yelled to the watchers. They stared mutely at him, unmoving.
Why waste a healer on an outland half-breed? The stray thought penetrated Jack’s mind.
Outraged at the arrogant prejudice of these people, he found a small spark of magic lingering within him. Instinctively he sought to draw more magic from the burned-out ley lines beneath his feet. Blue sparks shot from his hand into Brunix’s gaping chest wound as the empty ley line shuddered from the strain of his tapping.
Brunix’s eyes fluttered opened, unfocused, filled with pain. “Save the lace!” he whispered. “Save her. . . .”
Jack leaned closer to catch the man’s dying words. A long-fingered hand grasped the neck of his tunic in a futile attempt to communicate.
“Katrina. Save her and the lace from Simeon.” A death rattle choked Brunix and he collapsed, staring into the nothingness of the void between the planes of existence.
The stone paving of the square trembled as if a hundred war steeds galloped toward the murder scene.
Jack looked up for the source of the disturbance. The instability of the Kardia beneath his feet faded to nothing. A sense of the familiar rocked his senses.
Just before the cave-in at the mine, a similar vibration had told him of the impending disaster. Had his instinctive reaching for power caused the ley line to crumble?
Instead of the prison of tunnels dug deep within the planet to trap him at the time of disaster, he faced a ring of grim-faced palace guards.
“You are under arrest for murder.” The magician who had invaded the factory last night stepped forward, a pair of iron manacles in his hand.
“He removed some outland garbage from our city!” protested an onlooker. A verbal protest only. No one stepped forward to defend Jack.
Praying that his protective delusion of blond hair wouldn’t evaporate, Jack visualized his armor snapping in place. Then he activated the spell with memorized trigger words.
Cold iron enclosed his wrists.
There was no magic left in his body or in the land. His staff was hidden back at the factory. Once more he was a prisoner and unable to save himself.
Hands slapped his body, roughly, in search of hidden weapons. The parchment crackled.
“What have we here, evidence of conspiracy with magic?” The slight man chortled at his public display of accusing Jack of more than just murder. He held the unrolled parchment up to the light for all to see.
Black ink sprawled across the page in a jumble of rectangular shapes and straight slashes. Under observation and bright sunlight, the runes flashed into unnatural red sigils. The parchment thinned. A bright circle of sunlight at the center charred and burst into flame.
Gasps of superstitious awe and fear rose from the crowd. A dozen hands signed the cross of the Stargods. Two dozen more crossed wrists and flapped their hands in the more ancient ward against evil.
In seconds, the parchment disappeared into useless ash.
“A trick with a glass,” Jack murmured so that only the magician heard.
“Perhaps,” he shrugged and scattered the last of the ashes across Brunix’s lifeless body. “Tricks keep the peasants afraid and cost no energy.”
The magician gestured for two burly men, easily a head taller than Jack, to take him into custody.
“Lock him in the warded dungeon. The rest of you come with me. We still have to capture the girl.”
Katrina wiggled the long divider pin that had been a gift from Brunix into the tiny crack between two wall panels. The hidden safe was deep in this wall. The door would open under pressure upon a secret trigger at the same time as a key released the lock. The long pin would have to be her key while her fingers sought a sensitive place at the top of the crack.
In another portion of the factory, the sound of a door being thrust open with violence startled her. The vibrations from the wooden panels shattering against the wall traveled all the way up to the top floor. Katrina’s feet tingled as the entire building shook.
A few more moments of privacy and she would know if the precious shawl had been made with Tambrin, or if Jack and King Simeon sought a different piece.
Heavy boots pounded upon the first flight of steps to the dormitory level. She almost didn’t hear the click of the hidden lock over the noise.
Brunix would be anxious to claim her when he returned, but surely his large boots wouldn’t make that much noise in his own factory.
The panel swung open. Glimmering lace spilled out. Reel after reel of precious white lace, ivory lace, and ecru. Slender insertions, square mats, round doilies, fans and flounces as wide as her spread fingers.
A fortune spilled out of the cavity. All of it made of Tamb
rin. Enough to hang the owner who cached the forbidden treasure.
The footsteps slowed as the stairs steepened between the dormitory and the workroom. A few screams from startled lacemakers rose through the flooring.
Hastily, Katrina fumbled through the vast mound of lace seeking the familiar texture of her mother’s shawl with her fingertips. At the back of the safe, beneath a stack of fans she found it. Sensitized by years of thread work, she knew without looking that the shawl had Tambrin spun with the silk. Both fibers were so fine they had blended together, neither distinguished from the other unless examined closely by an expert.
A particular creak indicated someone had left the workroom and now sought the top floor of the factory.
Katrina bundled the spilled lace and shoved it into the cavity. There was so much of it, she couldn’t hold it all in place while she closed the panel.
The lock on the outer door rattled. A fist hit the immovable panels.
Heedless of damaging dirt and tangles she crammed the reels together, held them in place with her foot while she closed the panel.
An alien foot slammed against the locked door.
The secret panel clicked closed.
She returned the long pin to its customary place within one of her plaits.
The door to the apartment crashed to the floor. Six palace guards crowded the landing.
Katrina backed up, hiding with her skirts the telltale tendril of shimmering white filigree peeping from the crack in the wall.
“Restrain her,” the slender man who had searched the warehouse last night ordered.
Fear robbed Katrina of speech and will. Two men, much taller than the magician in charge, stepped toward her. The manacles looked puny dangling in the massive paw of the broadest of the guards.
At the last moment she stepped back, coming up against the wall abruptly.
“Owner Neeles Brunix holds me in slavery. You must have his authority to—”
“Owner Neeles Brunix is dead,” the magician interrupted. “Murdered by one of his outland kin. At least we presume the night watchman in his employ is kin,” he dismissed her protest. The magician’s gleeful grin killed whatever hope Katrina might have had. “You belong to King Simeon now. Or the coven. Take your choice, Slave Kaantille.”
“Brunix is dead?” Katrina didn’t know what else to say, wishing only to stall. She had no doubt Jack had a good reason for committing murder. Like preserving his own life. But he was too smart, too powerful a magician to be caught so easily. Unless he didn’t do it. Unless . . .
The cold iron of the manacle slapping her wrists drained the blood from her head and the strength from her knees. White spots appeared before her eyes, as cold sweat broke out on her back.
All these years of keeping Brunix at bay, of avoiding Simeon and his evil rituals were for naught. The Solstice was mere weeks away.
What will Simeon do to me when he finds out I’m no longer a virgin?
“Yes, Brunix is dead. I made certain of it when I twisted the knife before removing and cleaning it,” the magician gloated as if he had committed the murder himself. “Now where is the shawl, Slave Kaantille?”
“What shawl?” she asked. Her eyes darted to the just completed piece on her pillow. Never would she betray to anyone but Jack the hoard of lace inside the wall.
“This shawl.” The magician lifted the lace gingerly between two fingers, as if afraid of being contaminated by it. “You aren’t a very good liar, Slave Kaantille. Don’t bother trying to fool me. A truth spell will force proper answers from you. Painfully if necessary. Bring her,” he ordered the guards as he sauntered out of the apartment, a sneer of contempt on his face, the lace held delicately away from his body.
Katrina screeched and struggled against her captors. They ended her thrashing by simply lifting her by the elbows and carrying her between them out the door. Never once did the palace guard look behind them at the scrap of lace betraying the secret wall safe.
Chapter 33
Jack’s ribs exploded in pain. He slumped against the manacles that chained him to the wall of the dungeon. His resistance to imprisonment evaporated with white hot agony.
Hope died.
A gap-toothed jailer smiled, fondling an iron bar as long as Jack’s outstretched arm. “Want more?” the man in black leather grinned at Jack. “Just keep up yer hollerin’ and ye can have all the tickles Old Mabel here can give.”
Old Mabel? The cretin actually had a name for his crude weapon. The coven must love this man. The Commune believed that Lord Krej and his sister had learned to use pain—in others or themselves—to create magical energy.
Jack wasn’t desperate enough, yet, to dive that deeply into black magic. Blood magic. Simurgh’s magic.
Blackness encroached upon his vision. The tip of the iron bar caressed his side, cold against the spreading fire of crushed ribs and laboring lungs.
“Don’t pass out on us now, boy,” the jailer coaxed with an almost seductive voice. “King Simeon and his lady have questions to ask ye. Ye be polite now and stay awake. Otherwise Old Mabel will need to wake ye up again.” With a parting chuckle, the jailer exited.
Jack invited the darkness of his unlit cell to soothe the blinding ache behind his eyes.
Little creatures scurried in the straw at his feet. He jerked back awake. The blood on his face and side had attracted rats. If he fell asleep, the disease-ridden rodents might take it as an invitation to feast on his still living flesh.
“Stargods! What did I do to deserve this?” he moaned.
“You chose to interfere with my dragon,” a quiet voice answered from the doorway.
For a moment Jack thought he was hallucinating. The newcomer appeared to be Lord Krej returned to life. His red hair was a little duller with the passage of three years. His square-cut beard hid the shape of his chin. But the bay-blue eyes that peered at Jack with lusting evil were the same. Even his red and green aura was the same.
The magic permeating his body smelled different. Still filled with Tambootie, but overlaid with something else. Something Jack couldn’t identify.
“Who broke the backlash spell, Krej?” Jack asked, his curiosity overcoming his pain, for a moment.
“KREJ!” the man yelled. “How dare you call me Krej? That insignificant son of a weak and petty Coronnite. I am King Simeon of SeLenicca and Hanassa, true heir to Rossemeyer and soon to be conqueror of Coronnan. Do you understand me, boy?”
“If you aren’t Krej, then you’re his twin brother,” Jack accused. So this was Simeon the Sorcerer, King of SeLenicca. Simeon the Insane, judging by his reaction.
“Nonsense, utter nonsense.” A new voice, calm and feminine and familiar, moved into Jack’s field of vision.
“Rejiia,” Jack whispered. Pale skin, smooth as ivory, black hair pulled into a sleek knot at her nape. Long and graceful body clothed in elegant black. There was a new sensuousness to her walk, maturity in her ample bosom and a seductive pout to her full, red lips. If anything she was lovelier than ever.
And taller. Rejiia at fifteen had been nearly as tall as her father, Krej. At twenty she topped the red-haired man beside her by a finger-width or two.
She deposited a lump of metal by the doorway. Jack squinted his aching eyes to focus on the talisman she had levitated to this cell. A tin weasel sculpture with flaking gilt paint. Krej.
“Lady Rejiia to you, boy,” she lifted her arrogant little chin in contempt. Her nose wrinkled at the same time as she caught a whiff of the odors of the dungeon. She caressed the head of the statue before moving into the cell.
“Adding incest to your sins, Lady Rejiia?” Jack quipped, tired of their need to add insult to injury with the appellation “boy.” Suddenly he was beyond pain, and fear. All that was left of him was a glimmer of hysterical humor and that wouldn’t last long.
“What do you mean by that, boy?” Rejiia approached Jack, looking as if she would spit on him. Anger blazed from her eyes and some of her control slipped, c
hanging her beautiful face into a mask of ugly hatred.
“I mean, that if Simeon isn’t your father, then he’s your father’s brother. He’s obviously your lover, you stink of him. Or don’t you care about such things?” With the clarity of pain and knowing he wouldn’t survive much longer, Jack saw it all.
Queen Rossemikka, who had been a victim of Janataea’s and Krej’s manipulations, had warned the Commune of the coven’s dynastic plans. Royal marriages and births throughout the world had been arranged and scheduled along with appropriate assassinations. Generation after generation of alliances came down to one or two people eligible to claim multiple thrones.
Simeon claimed descent from Rossemikka’s much older, exiled, half sister. Thus he should rule Rossemeyer. His marriage to Queen Miranda of SeLenicca had produced a princess who could claim both thrones. If she married the heir to Coronnan, the entire continent would be united under one crown.
Rejiia shared a common great-grandfather with Darville of Coronnan. She, or her child, could claim the Coraurlia, the dragon crown, if Darville and Mikka had no children. Jack wished he’d taken the time to catch up on current events since leaving the mines. He had no idea who was alive and well and who wasn’t.
What seemed most important, now, was that the coven would control Queen Miranda’s daughter, Jaranda, and whoever inherited Coronnan. Stargods help them all if Rejiia passed off a child of an incestuous relationship as heir and mate to Jaranda, another incestuous relationship.
Greedy madness shone in Simeon’s eyes. He, like Krej, was too ambitious to wait for the coven’s plans to come to fruition. He wanted to rule and exploit for himself and not the coven.
I have to end this madness, Jack thought. No matter the cost, I have to stop the coven.
A jolt of memory rocked his mind away from Rejiia’s spitting indignation. Years ago, Jack had claimed the name of “Yaakke.” A name out of legend. A name of power and great reverence.
A thousand years ago, Yaakke, son of Yaacob the Usurper, had united three clans in northern Coronnan to form the first kingdom. Yaakke had met the Stargods in the sacred clearing and vowed eternal fealty and reverence if the three red-haired brothers would save his wife and child from the plague. The plague was banished and Yaakke charged with the duty of eliminating the power of the winged demon Simurgh. He had succeeded but only after bitter and bloody battles. Yaakke died two days after the last battle.
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