Gracia sat in an armchair with perfect posture and an open book she did not even pretend to read. She dropped her tome with no incentive to retrieve it.
“Vane,” she stammered. “Vane, you came as well.”
The king shook Zacry’s hand, then clapped Vane on the back. The queen walked up to the new arrivals and threw her arms around the boy. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. “You don’t know what this means to me.”
“Contenay Ruid,” Zacry said, and the walls took on a subtle golden glow. Queen Gracia twisted her hands.
“A sound barrier,” her husband explained. “I’ve seen my share of them. We can’t be too careful.” The queen nodded, her lips pressed tight.
“What happened?” Zacry asked.
“It’s the boys,” said the queen. “My three sons. I don’t know how many times I warned them not to wander off by themselves. They go out to the meadow, you see, rather often, with an escort of two guards. I’d prefer they stay closer to the Palace, but they’re boys, and they crave the open air. All children do. It would be cruel to coop them here like fowl.”
“Of course it would,” said Vane.
“It was forty days ago,” continued Gracia. “A full forty days. They left late morning, and by dusk had not returned. Neither had their guards.”
Rexson said, “I suspected the worst from the start. I went out myself to search for them, with four or five companions I knew were trustworthy. We found the boys’ escorts sure enough, dead, covered with leaves, as though someone had wanted to hide them. It’s lucky I found them and not a random passerby. I was able to avoid a scandal. The public still doesn’t know the boys are gone.
“The bodies were in a wood I’ve forbidden the boys to explore, which makes me think my sons slipped away somehow, probably under Valkin’s instigation. He’s the oldest, and curious. No, fearless is what he is, more so than his brothers. Add cleverness to the bargain, and you’ll understand his personality’s potency…. Perhaps they were lured away. In any case, they wandered off into some kind of trap.”
“Someone had been watching your sons,” said Vane. “Someone knew their routine.”
“So it seems,” agreed the king. “There could be a conspirator in my very walls. I couldn’t investigate, not fully, not without causing alarm.”
Queen Gracia said, “We’ve told anyone who asks the boys are off to tour the kingdom. A kind of holiday. Only Rexson’s chief adviser knows the truth.”
“The Duke of Podrar,” the king specified. “I’ve been direct with him. He kept up appearances when Zalski ruled, but he gave Vane’s mother support. Money he couldn’t part with—Zalski made his nobles keep strict record of all expenditures—but the man actually hid Laskenay when business took her to the capital. He was the only noble she trusted for that. So I told him about the boys. I also told him he was to have nothing to do with arranging their return, that the culprits were magicked, that involving himself could endanger his grandchildren and that I had, well, other people I could turn to, people with more experience than he in such matters.”
The queen told Vane and Zacry, “These monsters, they’ve demanded a quiet negotiation. They say they’ll cut the boys’ throats if the abduction’s known. Like pigs. Like swine, as though my sons were swine.” She buried her face in one of her hands, unable to say more. Her husband took her other.
A nerve twitched in Zacry’s jaw. “Who’s done this? Where are they holding them? What have they asked in exchange?”
The king answered him. “The faction calls itself the Enchanted Fist. They’re a secret society, founded by a sorceress who stayed neutral during Zalski’s rule because a lot of his civil policy she couldn’t support, though she was all in favor of uniting the magic community. Arbora grew interested in politics, ironically enough, soon after I came to power. She saw disturbing tendencies in my rule, principally my banishing your sister at the start of it.
“To her credit, she and the Fist have been largely respectable in expressing their frustration. They’ve petitioned me. I’ve held conference with Arbora, usually without the outcome she desired, but she appreciated my offering her an ear, my debating her supporters behind closed doors.”
“What changed the Fist’s tactics?” asked Vane.
Rexson sighed. “Arbora Anders decided Herezoth needs a Sorcerers’ Council. An official council, which would require the crown’s backing. Not only does the kingdom need this council, she says, it needs it now. We discussed the proposal, and I told her it would be too much, too soon. People wouldn’t understand the purpose. They’d grow frightened. There are other groups, with honest hatred for the magicked, that would stoke the fear to create unrest. I tried to make her see I’d spent the past fifteen years trying to stabilize the kingdom’s simple infrastructure. After Zalski’s oppressive tax code and the poverty it caused; the old tensions he exacerbated; his draconian penal law, which had more support from the nobility than you might think…. I told Arbora I needed at least three years to lay more of a foundation, culturally. She was beginning to concede the delay, but when we stood to leave, she pushed her chair back farther than she intended. It jarred the wall in my office, where an ancient suit of armor hangs. Most of the pieces fell, and the helmet would have struck her in the head. I was faster than she was, though a table stood between us. I diverted the helm’s trajectory….”
“Your telekinesis,” said Zacry.
The black spot on Vane’s heart doubled in size. He demanded confirmation of his mentor’s words.
“You’re telekinetic?”
Rexson said, “For a decade and a half I kept my secret. There were times, with the League, that I used my power in public, but it would have been hard to notice as a bystander. On top of that, no one thought I was alive back then. No one connected me with the power I’d shown, not even after the Restoration. I broke myself of the habit of using it, but when there’s no other way to prevent concussion….”
Vane stepped up to the king, shaking in his disbelief. “You have magic? You’re one of us, you personally, and you’ve done nothing in fifteen years to give the magicked some forum that…?”
Rexson’s voice took on a steely edge. “I’ve kept to policy that would not foment unrest. I’ve tried to prevent magic blood being spilt in the street. If that is not enough for you, I sincerely regret your sentiments.”
“You’re a coward,” said Vane. “A bloody coward. You’re just making excuses!”
“I inherited a firestorm. A veritable firestorm. I’ve been struggling since I took the throne just to contain the blaze, and you want me to light candles?”
The youth was undeterred. Those very fires had spread to his soul. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, you need to hear something that happened to me when I was ten.”
Queen Gracia had returned to her armchair, morose, exhausted, and defeated; she used her fist to prop up her head. Zacry was transfixed by the argument. The king motioned for Vane to speak.
“I was ten,” the boy repeated. “My friend Francie and I were walking along the river, talking about what a cad her older brother was, when we reached a place where the current’s been dammed off so people can swim. It was summer. Francie wanted to jump in, I guess, because that’s what she did. She pulled me after her, pulled my shirt right over my head without meaning to, and she couldn’t help but see the sorcerer’s mark behind my right shoulder.” A triangular-shaped birthmark. All sorcerers had one, though its location varied. “Well, Francie was frightened. Horrified. She looked at me like I was some kind of stranger before she scrambled out the water and ran home without a word to me. Naturally, she told her mother. The woman wouldn’t let her see me after that. They told other people, and the local thugs threatened us.
“That’s why my aunt and I moved from Fontferry. I don’t know what excuse she gave you, but that’s why. We had no other choice. Things like that happen all the time to people like me, to people like you, and you’ve never given an address to plead for coexistence? For coopera
tion? Not a simple address?”
There was nothing steely about the king now. His brow had unfurrowed and his tone was accommodating, without condescension. He never did speak down to Vane.
“What you fail to understand is that my position in no way compares to Zacry’s. He can write as many essays about magic and society as he wishes. Those who stand against him simply ignore him. They can afford to do that, as he’s no power over them or anyone else. He doesn’t even live here, which is something they delight in and are quick to use against him when they mention him at all.
“My voice does hold sway in Herezoth. I started my reign by banishing a sorceress for little other cause than the sin of being a sorceress. That’s how it appeared. Luckily, the magic community didn’t have the numbers to protest or oppose me, not with the kingdom as baited as it had been by Zalski. The very townsfolk would have torn them limb from limb. Those same townsfolk felt they had found an ally against magic in me. Passions, of course, have cooled to an extent since then, but the extremists are still there, armed with kindling, just waiting to stoke the fires back to their old strength.
“Suppose, Vane, I were to do as you suggest. Suppose I gave an address pleading for coexistence. For tolerance. Before you could blink, those extremists would organize to remind the nation how I exiled Kora Porteg before Zalski’s body was cold. They would claim that, after such an act, to change my views completely is inexplicable. Clearly, clearly, the sorcerers have sunk their claws into me. Enchanted me, made me their puppet.”
“But that’s impossible,” said Vane. “Human will….”
“I know just as well as you that human will is inviolable. That no magic can touch it. Do you think the average farmer, or carpenter, understands that? Some would call for my abdication, a small number at first, but the movement would grow. Others would defend me. Confrontations would turn violent.”
An apologetic note entered the king’s voice as he continued. “You’re correct, Vane, it’s unjust that your aunt had to move you. Perhaps I’m wrong for not publicly condemning that necessity. Maybe I am weak for keeping silent. The fact is, I would rather you have to move than have extremists burn your roof down on top of you because I involved myself. If I must err, I’ll err on the side of caution. If you don’t agree with me, I ask that you recognize I’ve no ill intent and that my stance has some reasoning behind it. I ask because I honestly respect you, and hold your good opinion to be of value.”
As the king hit on the crux of his self-defense—soon after Vane had interrupted him—the young sorcerer’s cheeks began to burn. Bit by bit Vane’s eyes lowered, then his head began to droop, until his chin sat on his chest and he was staring at his feet as though the appendages were an unknown part of him he had only just discovered, along with the hole in his spirit where a newly missing innocence had been.
Vane felt, sincerely, that he had given up his innocence in his verbal assault, or a part of it, and that a grisly truth had occupied the crevice where it used to reside. The boy had learned he was capable of jabbing a knife in the chest of a friend already bleeding, and that he could not do so without feeling some pain himself. All Vane could do now was withdraw the blade. He could try to staunch the king’s wound, as well; it took a concerted effort to look Rexson in the eye and say, “Forgive me. You’re no coward, sir, and your good opinion matters to me as well. It matters a great deal.”
Rexson smiled, and held a hand briefly on Vane’s shoulder. “I appreciate your coming, especially when I didn’t ask it. And Zacry, I’m eternally indebted, eternally.”
“Let me help,” Vane pleaded. “I’ll go back if you order me to, but I want to help. You know I can be of use.”
The queen rose and embraced the boy as she had when he first entered. “You’re very like your parents,” she told him. “I can think of no higher praise.”
Zacry was growing impatient now. He kept it from showing in his face, but he prompted, “Arbora?”
“Arbora,” said the king, “was not alone with me in my study when I revealed my magic. Had she been, my children would be home right now. Her second and third in command were with her, though she had asked them to let her do the speaking, as a concession to me, so as not to have three against one. They’re both young, twenty-five, and they were the ones at the root of the abductions.
“One’s a sorcerer. He’s fond of ice and water spells. Where Arbora can be reasonable, he’s adamant that nothing less than giving sorcerers free rein again, like under Zalski, is acceptable. He believes that the magicked should police themselves. Any other restriction is oppressive and immoral, a crime against nature. Nature, he says, gave him power to use as he sees fit.”
“Not the Giver?” asked Vane. The Giver was Herezoth’s deity, one who blessed through the toil and generosity of his devotees, called his Instruments. He performed a miracle only on rare occasions. Despite what his name implied, he had no trouble taking as often as he granted something, and ancient spiritual writings held those who spurned his call to service would suffer for the decision in the afterlife, in his hell. Many often referred to him with a simple “God,” for while some chose to deny his existence, Herezoth had no other deity to offer an alternative for religious devotion.
The king said, “Dorane Polve’s not a believer. That would mean assuming the role of the Giver’s Instrument, you see. Serving others in the divine name. The man neither calls for nor defends the subjugation of the masses to the empowered, as Zalski did, but he’s willfully blind. He refuses to admit the obvious truth that if you don’t hold the magicked responsible like everybody else for their actions….”
“And the other?” asked Zacry.
“The other’s a woman born and raised in the fishing villages. She made her family rich by routinely forcing trout to jump in her father’s boat. She’s not a sorceress, but she controls animals.”
“Animals?” said Vane.
The king said, “She can make any creature do whatever she wills, but only one at a time. She keeps a bear as a pet.” Rexson scowled. “Once paraded the thing through the streets of Carphead to make a statement, when she and the mayor had a disagreement about the legality of her caring for it.”
“Her name’s Ursa Hincken,” said the queen. “I don’t want to her call her uncouth, but she tends to be rustic. Uncultured. Dorane, on the other hand, enjoys trying to discredit everything you write, Zacry. He doesn’t get far, or he didn’t the one time he spoke to me, a year ago, in an attempt to sway me to influence Rexson on his behalf. Your thinking’s more methodical, more consistent from point to point.”
The king said, “The two nearly had seizures when they realized I had powers. If only they had, if only they’d dropped dead right there….”
“People would have accused you of murder,” said Zacry. “That group would have for sure: the Enchanted Fist, are they called? I imagine the pair representing them fell back to the standard accusations.”
“I was a traitor, a selfish cad and coward.” Vane flushed red again. “Dorane and Ursa could hardly stomach me when I fell in line with the opposition, but I made sense to them then. To be one of them, with an army at my back, and nonetheless choose not to exploit the situation, that was beyond their comprehension.”
Gracia let out a sad little sigh, almost inaudible, as her husband went on, “I didn’t fear they might expose me. A council of magicians to advise the crown, that would hardly cause the same backlash as revealing I have powers. People would protest to prevent that council, but aim for nothing more. My secret revealed, with the authority I wield and Zalski’s abuses still raw in the kingdom’s memory…. With my exposure, the public would turn on all the magicked, politically inclined or not, in a blind panic, and while Ursa would seemingly want to see me come crashing down, she’s not quite prepared to take that fall herself. Dorane, well….
“Dorane understands what could happen if my telekinesis became known. While my children are apparently disposable, the blackguard has a son himself he�
�s not willing to sacrifice, and his son’s death would be conceivable were civil war to break, that he does see. So I knew he and Ursa would not expose me, but I could tell they sensed an opportunity, the both of them. Arbora with them, perhaps. I thought it was the chance to reshape their approach, to present new arguments to tempt me to concede to them. Arbora requested to return in a week’s time, and I consented. My sons disappeared three days later.”
“Do we know where they’re being held?” Zacry asked. “What exactly are you hoping I can do? And how do you know so much about these people?”
Gracia said, “Those questions can best be answered in the morning, over breakfast with Miss Esper.”
Zacry’s languor fell away. “Bennie’s here.”
“I didn’t want to involve her,” said the king. “I involved Hayden, that was my mistake—or so I thought. He went behind my back. There’ll be more than spells keeping the children at bay, that’s how he justified himself.”
Zacry nodded. “So Bennie’s cleaned the rust off Ranler’s old lockpicks, has she?”
“We wouldn’t have a chance of getting the boys back without her.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Brothers
Arbora Anders had been twenty years old and more tender than most her age when Zalski Forzythe executed his coup d’état. She had grown up in Partsvale, quite distant from the sorcerer’s native Podrar and the royal court to which his birth gave him access. Indeed, Arbora still made her home in that large northwestern village known for its shrine to Herezoth’s god and its pool that worked, upon occasion, some small miracle of healing due to the Giver’s mercy. It was beneath the light of a pale Partsvale moon streaming through her open window that Arbora tossed in bed, unable for the fourth night in a row to clear her mind. Not even the summer breeze blew out her worries.
Arbora had lived a quarter-century before setting foot in the capital. She had never heard Zalski’s name before he assumed power, let alone made his acquaintance, but she wished desperately, and daily—sometimes nightly as well—that she had met the man before his three year reign. Familiar with his aims and character, she would have had some basis on which to choose a course of action. Whether to throw her support behind him or to stand against him would have been clear. Even now, Arbora wished she had traveled to the Crystal Palace in the early days of Zalski’s regime. The man had been flawed, but he had also revered magic’s majesty as few before him. He would have respected Arbora’s abilities, would have yearned for her backing, even to the point of—the years had convinced her of this—sacrificing the cruelty of his justice system to gain her goodwill. Due to Arbora’s influence, or Zalski’s fear of losing her support, which would have amounted to the same thing, the sorcerer would have moderated the worst in himself, allowing his belief that the magicked should not and must not hide to burgeon in the hearts of Herezoth’s youth. What the Giver could have accomplished with Arbora as his Instrument!
The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 3
