Reflecting on those days inevitably brought Arbora to dwell on her hatred of two individuals, the first of whom was she herself. Arbora’s sin of inaction, of indolence and indecision, was a sin unpardonable. One could justify wavering for a day, or a week, but for three full years…. Her constitution could not have been weaker, and the guilt of her missed opportunity was one she could never expiate. She did not want her guilt expiated. Arbora deserved no peace, for one thing, and for another, her inner turmoil had become for her what a rudder is to a ship. Her shame directed her, kept her not merely in motion but covering real distance. Without it, she feared she would roam in circles again, stupidly, fruitlessly. To choose a destination and push full-speed toward it no matter rough waters, that was what life called for. That was what Arbora had been doing for eleven years now, ever since she had founded the Enchanted Fist. She did not believe she had darted off in the wrong direction, and had held her course, had never veered away. Some of those she tried to guide might have turned, but not Arbora. If by chance she had chosen the wrong bearings, well, the error was preferable, a million times preferable, to going nowhere and suffering vertigo from those sickening circles.
The second human being Arbora hated was Kora Porteg. She loathed Porteg with an infantile intensity out of nothing but pure envy. While Arbora recognized the seed of her invented rivalry, she was powerless, despite her magic, to uproot the noxious bloom that sprouted from it. (She had never been able to do a thing with gardens.) Porteg was everything, and yet nothing, that Arbora should have been. Choosing the wrong side—that was reason enough to hate the woman—Porteg had stood firm, had done more than that, had advanced unfalteringly, slowly at moments but unfalteringly, dragging the royalist movement behind her. She pulled them even to victory, despite slandering tongues and vicious printed lies.
Then there was the matter of Porteg’s exile. The king used the sentence he had levied as a crutch to prop his arguments; he talked about extremists who railed and rallied against the very idea of magic and who thought he was on their side because he had turned on his supporter. He claimed these people were dangerous. Whenever he said this Arbora wanted to yell that the lunatics couldn’t possibly be as numerous as the king feared, and that Rexson couldn’t let a few crazed individuals prevent him from making real progress, from reaching out to heal the magic community, which did need healing—but she never did. She would be a hypocrite to chastise Rexson for acting exactly as she: rather, for choosing not to act. Arbora could hardly stand the thought of Kora Porteg in exile, because Porteg had not deserved banishment, and the life sentence under which she toiled tempted her fellow sorceress to sympathize with her.
However, Kora Porteg was not the person who prevented Arbora’s slumber, who filled her heart with dread, her mind with premonitions that she had directed her ship to collide with a hurricane that had only just organized in the open waters ahead. No, Ursa and Dorane were the party responsible for that. But what was there to do? The two had kidnapped three royals without consulting her. They refused with vehemence to release the boys or to turn themselves in. There could be no turning back; the pair’s crimes were far too drastic for reparation. Arbora must support them. Perhaps Rexson might sanction a Magic Council in the end, on behalf of his sons and their liberty. Yes…. Yes, he would have to kowtow. The king had no powers to rival the Fist and its magicians, and no one to call to his aid. Who would help him? Kora Porteg? Rexson had banished her, betrayed her in a fit of spinelessness. Her brother Zacry? Zacry was a second-rate academic, more interested in arguments than incantations, and rumor held the younger Porteg was none too fond of the king after what he had done to Kora. Besides, Zacry was in Traigland, tucked away near Triflag with the sister the king had sent away.
What was to be, Arbora told herself, would be. Why waste the wee hours panicking? She had set her course eleven years ago, and had only to continue the route she had always traveled.
* * *
The basement of Ursa Hincken’s mansion was sprawling, particularly in its state of near barrenness. Twisting shadows, caused by moonlight that filtered through a handful of narrow, barred windows set high in one of the stone walls, danced with the stiffness of a crab and the passion of a pouncing lion. No actual crabs or lions, of course, could call the basement home, but a friendly mouse lived in one of four or five empty barrels that some spiders used to support their webs; they strung their silk between them in a feeble attempt at some kind of decoration, the only decoration in the room, which also housed three human inhabitants. These were three brothers who had named the mouse Twit. They shared their food with him, which was no heroic gesture, as they always had food enough.
Huddled beneath thin blankets on mattresses of straw, the boys lay with closed eyes where they were farthest from the massive omnivore that prowled outside: the wall opposite the windows.
Ursa’s bear frightened the youngest brother in particular, the one with the darkest hair, chestnut like his mother’s. Hune’s fear upset him greatly. He was only eight years old, but had never met an animal he did not like before now. At the Palace, while Valkin longed to explore Podrar and marked the days off a calendar until his fourteenth birthday, still years away, when his parents had promised he could visit the even more exciting city of Yangerton; while Neslan expanded the stone collection he used to build replicas of castles, or cottages, or statues, or begged his nurse to tell him stories; while his brothers did these things, Hune liked to go down to the stables and keep his pony company with the stable hand’s son. Animals liked Hune as a matter of course. Even Twit preferred him to the other boys, and Hune had been the one to give the mouse its name.
Ursa’s bear swatted the bars on one of the windows and let out a deep growl. Hune whimpered, and opened his eyes in time to see the animal pull back a paw the size of Hune’s own head. The bear had never acted like it wanted to get in before; the boy clutched his blanket tight, and his voice shook.
“Valkin?”
Hune’s oldest brother, who was eleven, extended his arm, feeling for the spectacles he had laid aside. He found them and sat up. “That thing can’t hurt us,” he said.
“Even if it ripped the bars off,” mumbled ten-year-old Neslan, sleepy, his eyes squeezed tight. “I know it hasn’t acted this vicious before tonight, but even if the bars come loose, the windows are too small for it to squeeze through. Even you couldn’t fit through them.”
“A shame, that,” said Valkin. “If they were a proper size, and the blasted beast weren’t there, and we could somehow pry those bars off, we could get Hune out.” Valkin and Neslan were both blond and telekinetic, like their father. Though the windows were almost in the ceiling, they could easily have lifted Hune up and out. Hune himself took after the queen. He had no magic at all.
Neslan rubbed his eyes and sat up with an exasperated look that just broke through his grogginess. “And what would happen then?” he asked. “What would happen to the two of us? Do you think Hune would find someone to help us fight these people before Ursa saw he was missing? Dorane’s staying in the mansion. He said everything would be all right as long as we behave, but he has a cruel look. He’d hurt us if we tried to escape. Since he’s a sorcerer, we’ll need a sorcerer to get us out of here. It was you that got us into this, Valkin. Don’t make it worse than it is already! You just had to find out where those squirrels were going, didn’t you? What they were up to.”
Valkin jumped to his own defense, as he had been doing for the past month straight every time this argument started. “Did you ever see squirrels act that way? Walk one by one, in a line, spaced exactly a minute apart?”
“No,” retorted Neslan. “Because it was that animal woman making them do it! Mother always told us not to go past the birches.”
“I wanted to follow the squirrels too,” Hune piped from the floor. “And you came with us. It wasn’t Valkin’s fault. Those people tricked us. Neslan, why do you think they did it?”
Valkin answered. “They want some
thing from Father, I suppose.”
Neslan nodded, and the moonlight glinted off his fair head, throwing the concern on his face into relief. Every time Valkin proposed that motive, Neslan grew solemn. “It’s about Father,” he said. “It has to be. But what if they want something he doesn’t have? Something he can’t give them? What do you think will become of us? We’ve been here for weeks already.”
“Forty-one nights,” announced Valkin. “This is the forty-first. I’m counting every one.”
The uncertainty that had parted Neslan’s lips and dulled his eyes turned to dread. He knew his brother’s restlessness, and grabbed Valkin by the arm. “Father will get us out of here,” he said. “Father will. Don’t do anything foolish. You’ll only make things harder, or get yourself hurt. We’re uncomfortable enough. Do you want them to tie us up?”
Valkin cried, “Of course I don’t!”
Neslan prompted, “What are you thinking to do? I know you’ve been thinking.”
The crown prince glanced at the sturdy wooden staircase against the eastern wall, a staircase that lacked a banister. It led to a metal door, the basement’s sole entrance. He said, “I’ve been thinking that one time when August brings us food, you or I, or both together, could pull her legs out from under her and send her down the stairs. Or maybe off the edge. Then we could take the key and get out of here.
“I figure,” Valkin continued, “that it’s not a good idea. I don’t know how to get out the mansion, for one thing, or past the bear, if we did reach an exit. And then there’s August. She’s not like her sister. August has been kind to us. She says she had no idea Ursa was planning to kidnap us, and I believe her. She says she has no magic. I believe that too. Those things can happen, look at Hune…. Well, if August has no magic, then she can’t defend herself against us, can she? Attacking her seems awfully cruel after all the time she’s spent trying to cheer us up, and the little cakes she brings, and the stories she’s read.”
Hune was thoroughly alarmed. “We can’t hurt August,” he said. “Of course we can’t hurt her.”
“We could warn her, though,” said Valkin. “We could tell her to halt when she comes in. That if she doesn’t hand over the key, we’ll make her fall.”
Neslan said, “But we wouldn’t. Don’t you think she knows that? And if she does hand us the key, what’ll happen to her after? I don’t like Ursa one bit. I know they’re sisters, but Ursa might harm her. They don’t get on like we do. Valkin, I’m sure Ursa would harm her, or the sorcerer would. So even if we do nothing more than threaten her, August gets hurt, which is no good, while we would still have to find a way out before Dorane stops us and avoid that bear to boot.”
Hune, still lying on his mattress, opened his eyes wide. His blanket was pulled up to his chin. “I don’t want to make Ursa angry with her sister. Neslan, I don’t want that.”
“I know you don’t,” Neslan assured him. “I don’t want that either. And neither does Val. Right, Val?”
Valkin sighed. He hated the basement, hated everything about it. He wanted to go home so badly….
“Right,” he said.
“I trust August,” Neslan told him. “If there were some way to escape from here, she’d help us. I know she’d help us. Don’t you see that?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Valkin. “Maybe you’re right.”
Hune said, “August wouldn’t keep us trapped here if she didn’t have to. She just doesn’t want the bear to eat us.”
Valkin replied, “To be fair, the bear would eat one of us at most. It could kill us all easily enough, though. That’s a point, Hune.”
Hune’s voice turned pleading. “Val, don’t make her give us the key. Please don’t do it. I can see Ursa making the bear eat August to pay her back.”
“Ursa’s not that evil,” protested Valkin.
“Val, please!”
The oldest brother’s forehead creased in thought. “I still say Ursa wouldn’t feed her to the bear. But Ursa would be angry. Quite angry, and as Neslan said, that’s no good. She can hurt August other ways. Listen, I want to get away from here more than both of you….”
“I doubt that,” Neslan grumbled to the floor.
“…but I don’t want to leave August in trouble. It doesn’t seem right somehow. Dorane and Ursa are using us, right? To get something from Father. Would we be any better if we used August to get free, and she was hurt in the process?”
Neslan said, “All I know is my stomach aches when I think about it. And that’s generally what happens when I’m being wicked.”
“So we agree?” piped Hune. He finally sat up, letting his blanket settle about his waist. “We all agree? None of us will take that key from August?”
“Not me,” said Neslan.
“Nor I,” added Valkin.
“Me neither,” said Hune, though without magic he would have found it next to impossible to steal the key. He felt comforted by his brothers’ being in league with him. His heart stopped beating quite so hard, and the tremors that had been shaking him diminished.
“Do you think Dorane will come tomorrow?” Neslan asked. “It’s been a week since he was here.”
“Nine days,” Valkin corrected him. “He comes every nine days. He should have been here yesterday, but I doubt he’ll return, not after last time.”
“How’d he know about our magic?” Neslan asked. “Did he find out with a spell?”
Valkin said, “If that’s the case, we never saw him cast it.”
Rexson had taught the older boys that concealing their telekinesis was something serious. Too young to understand the matter’s true importance, the princes were moved by their father’s rare severity, his hard insistence, and did as Rexson instructed. Even when Dorane and Ursa set their ambush, Valkin and Neslan knew better than to set off a magic display. Somehow, though, Dorane had discovered the princes’ power. He talked about it the day of the abduction, during his first chat with them. He told all three their telekinesis made them special, and they should have the right to use it; that they were part of a small but respectable community, a community that could flourish if others would listen to its problems. Those people who had magic to any degree, Dorane told them, were suffering, suffering when their powers could work so much good in the kingdom…. He always spoke that way, while his captive audience shared uncomfortable looks in silence. To the boys’ relief, their confusion did not provoke the sorcerer. He asked no questions and demanded no reply.
In the children’s eyes, Dorane had little but his magic to leave a lasting impression. His hair was oily and mud-colored. His eyes were that same shade of brown, like murky water. He had entered his mid-twenties and still suffered acne on his chin. Not particularly tall, neither was he short, and while his muscles far from sagged, they could have been tighter. Besides Dorane’s appearance and his sharp, intense air, the boys knew little about the man except his esteem for a magic he was unafraid to use. During the ambush, the sorcerer had bound the princes and their guards with an incantation.
Valkin, Neslan, and Hune were ignorant of their protectors’ ultimate fate—leaving the men tied up, Dorane had transported the princes to Ursa’s mansion, wherever that was, and the boys had formed an unspoken pact not to mention the soldiers, of whom they had been fond—but they had long since lost hope of seeing their escort again. When Dorane came to the basement he always came alone, and the last time he paid the three brothers a visit, poor Hune could no longer stand the implications of his message about magic entitlement. Staring at the wall, hardly audible, the boy protested, “My brothers aren’t more special than I am.”
The small, shaking voice took Dorane aback. “Of course they’re not more special than you. I know your secret, Hune, the secret none of you should have to hide. All three of you can make objects move without touching them.”
“No,” said Hune. He looked at the sorcerer’s sandals now, still unsure of himself. “They can move things, the two of them. I can’t, but
that doesn’t mean I’m worth less.” The boy raised his eyes, finding courage as he spoke. “Mother says it doesn’t matter whether I have magic, and she’s right. You listen to me, she’s right! My brothers don’t matter more than me. I ride a pony better than they can, and the governess says I’m better with sums than Valkin was when he was eight. I’m good at other things.”
Hune could say nothing more; he had started to cry. In a minute he was shaking all over, with tears streaming down his face in two unbroken lines. Neslan threw an arm around him while Valkin rose, also trembling, but with anger instead of sadness. Dorane tried to salvage the situation. “I never said people without magic have less value. I never once said that.”
Valkin’s face had turned as red as his youngest brother’s, the brother still sobbing on Neslan’s shoulder. “Go away!” Valkin yelled. “Won’t you just go away? Haven’t you done enough? Don’t you see you’ve upset him?” And the sorcerer had left: left nine days ago, per Valkin’s tally.
The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 4
