The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

A young man had been bending over Vane’s bag, examining its contents. Purple bonds now tightened around him, and he tottered, his face landing flat against Vane’s change of clothes. He wore an apron, as though he worked in the kitchens.

  When the man turned his head, his dimpled mouth was stretched in a grimace. His cheeks and pointed nose were red, and his wavy black hair looked a mess. “I surrender!” he cried. “Don’t cast more spells! I have a family, a sister and grandma.”

  Vane kicked the man over to his back, then yanked him to his feet, making his head roll like a rag doll in the process.

  “Looks like I caught me a spy.”

  “The name’s Treel. I mean no harm.”

  “No harm? What do you take me for? You’re the Fist’s inside man.”

  “I don’t have magic. I’m not political, all right? I grew up with Dorane. I owe him a life debt. That’s why I helped him, why I gave him the king’s kids. I trusted he wouldn’t hurt them.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  Treel hesitated. “Not really,” he said, “no.”

  “What are you doing in my room?”

  “I’ve haven’t slept in days out of fear that, well, that exactly this might happen. I’ve seen you before: years ago, when you came to stay here. You were a boy, but your face, it’s distinctive. Your eyes are big, real big, and few people have hair that shade of auburn. When you showed up again in the middle of the king’s crisis, I was confused. Why would he bring you back? Why now? When the others left and you were still here, I figured, maybe the kid has magic. Maybe the king has some magic supporters. It explained at least why he’d want you around. You helped rescue his sons, didn’t you? I had to know what I was up against, who it was that’s trying to sniff me out.”

  Vane glanced around the room; the mattress no longer lay aligned with the bedframe, the mattress he had used to hide his mother’s journal. Horrified, Laskenay’s son punched his captive in the stomach, and the spy doubled over. Vane held him up by his apron.

  “Where’s the journal?”

  “Where you left it,” Treel choked.

  “How much do you know about me? How much?”

  “I don’t know nothing. Nothing, all right? I don’t read so good. Don’t read at all.”

  “Like Dorane would pick a spy who can’t read. What use is that?”

  “I don’t have to read to know the princes go out to the meadow with a couple of guards every Tuesday at two o’clock, do I? That’s all Dorane needed me to tell him. That’s all I did tell him. I’m not in this for the long haul. Didn’t I say I’m not political? I didn’t want him to hurt those boys.”

  “Well, he tried,” said Vane. “He would’ve killed them, you son of a bitch.” The sorcerer dropped his hold on the captive, let him fall to the floor with a thud.

  “I owed him my life.”

  “Then you could have returned the favor without endangering children. Could have made the king agree to let Dorane live before you revealed his plot and prevented all this madness.”

  Treel blinked. “I’m not sure Dorane would’ve considered that a favor.”

  “You didn’t think of it, did you?”

  “I’m in the kitchens. The blasted kitchens. You think I have access to the royals?”

  “You could have found a way.”

  Treel looked not only desperate now, but exasperated. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “The Duke of Ingleton,” said Vane. His father’s title—his title—issued from his mouth without forethought. Under the circumstances, to make his authority manifest seemed natural.

  Treel’s expression became more exasperated than ever. “Of course,” he said. “That’s just my luck. Your mother was Zalski’s sis—”

  “My mother was loyal to the king. As am I, you rat, so don’t get any ideas you can buy me off.”

  Treel let out an ironic burst of laughter. “Buy you off? With what, exactly? I’ve got nothing. Seeing that’s the case, what would you say’s in store for me?”

  “That’s up to the king and queen, isn’t it?”

  “Then I’m a dead man.”

  Treel’s deadpan tone, his lack of hope, hit Vane in the chest like a fist. What was he feeling? Surely not pity?

  “The king might be merciful. If he’s successful, he just might be, at least in your case. He’s off hunting Dorane right now, so you’d better hope he bags his prey. If he gets Dorane, he won’t care about you so much, but if the Fist slips away…. In that case, I’m afraid you might be right. He’ll consider you a substitute.”

  Treel’s voice came fast. He clutched at the hope Vane offered; he might even have physically reached for it, were he not bound. “So he’ll spare me? If he captures or kills Dorane, he’ll let me go?”

  “When did I say that? I said he might let you live. There’s no way in hell he’s letting you go. Do you know how old his youngest boy is? Eight, Treel. Hune’s eight.”

  Treel sighed. “Listen, you seem like a decent man.”

  “I try to be.”

  “I’ve seen other nobles. They’re always coming and going. They have airs, and you don’t. The king clearly respects you. Maybe you could talk him into not being so harsh with me.”

  “Give me a reason to do that.”

  “I can’t. You beat the snot out of me a minute ago: that’s the treatment I deserve. I just figured, what’s it gonna hurt to ask you? You’re different from the other nobles, like I said. You don’t talk like them, or stand like them. But then, your parents didn’t raise you, did they? You do remind me of one duke, the Duke of Crescenton.” Hayden’s title. “But he wasn’t born noble. He’s some country-bred yokel the king gave a title to.”

  “Crescenton’s title’s as legitimate as anyone’s. The man’s got more courage up his nose than you’ll ever….”

  “I’ve got nothing against Crescenton. He’s probably the only one of them who’d give me the time of day. So, what do you think? Will you talk to the king? Plead my case?”

  “Tell me why I should,” Vane repeated.

  “Dorane did coerce me.”

  “You risked the lives of children.”

  “My sister and grandmother, they’ll die if I’m executed, of hunger if not shame.”

  “Executions aren’t public anymore, and my fortune’s enough to support your family. I’ll see there’s food on the table. Why else?”

  “Nothing comes to mind. I can’t say I regret helping Dorane. We were like brothers, and you don’t turn your back on a brother.” The line of Vane’s mouth tightened. He could not help but think of his mother, but he let Treel keep on. “I’m sorry Dorane turned out such a selfish cad. I’m sorry he found me, and I’m sorry the favor he asked of me was little less than treason, but where I come from, family’s family. A debt’s a debt, and that’s it.”

  Vane understood. He did not share Treel’s point of view, but he understood it. He remembered his closest friend from childhood, a friendship, like Dorane and Treel’s, that had faded over the years: Francie, the girl who had seen the mark on his back at the swimming hole. Summer nights, when Francie slept at Vane’s aunt’s inn—the inn Teena had rebuilt after a troll attack the night Laskenay reunited with her son—the children would sneak to the riverbank behind the barn to enjoy the mild weather, and count the stars, and talk until three or four a.m., when they had to go back inside because Teena got up before dawn. Francie rose before Vane’s mind as she used to be, and he imagined the woman she was now. If their paths should cross, and she should ask his help, and he refuse her…. How heartless he would feel, despite what her mother had done to him and Teena! Like a troll, like some kind of monster, regardless of what she wanted.

  Better a troll than a traitor, though. There are evils no friendship is worth or can demand. Yes, better a troll.

  Treel’s cynical smile returned. “Walking in my shoes?” he asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Dare I ask what happens now?”

  �
�I told you, that’s up to the royals.”

  “I mean right now.”

  “We wait for the queen to come by. She’s bound to look for me here. I’m not about to pull you through the halls and disrupt her audience.”

  “Don’t want to blow your cover as a servant, do you? I could yell, you know.”

  “You do and you’ll regret it.”

  “That’s why I haven’t.” Treel sighed. “Look, can you unbind me already? This is ridiculous. Where am I gonna go? One look at me like this, and everyone will know what you are.”

  Vane thought for a moment. First, he brought the luggage inside so no passerby could wonder at it. Next, he stared at Treel and muttered, “Aberigwa Podair.” Treel shivered, an effect of Vane’s spell, but the sorcerer gave no apology or explanation. He had tested the spy for magic; were Treel empowered, sparks would have exploded noiselessly above him. After that, Vane searched Treel for weapons and found nothing. Only then did he vanish the man’s bonds.

  “Took you long enough.”

  “Right,” said Vane. “You’re welcome.”

  “So when do you think the queen’ll come?”

  “Two hours? Six? How should I know?”

  “Do you have cards in here? Or dice, anything we can wile away the time with?”

  Vane narrowed his eyes. “You tell me.”

  “I didn’t search through everything, all right?”

  “There’s always a deck of cards in the desk drawer. Get it yourself if you want it. I’m not turning my back on you.”

  Dorane’s spy dragged himself to the desk, where he found the cards in the spot Vane had mentioned. He raised them above his head to show the sorcerer he held nothing more, and then took a seat on the rug.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” said Treel. He tapped the floor to indicate Vane should join him, and shuffled the cards with a flourish. Like all decks, it carried fifty-two cards in the traditional suits of knowledge, sorcery, fortune, and blades.

  Vane did not care for games, but he felt sorry for the man before him, so he seated himself as urged, though at a greater distance than was necessary. He pitied Treel, but he also remembered the king’s exhibition in the library.

  “You play much?” Treel asked.

  “Not really, no. When I do, I like Cradle best.” The few times Vane had gone with Parker to the local gambling house in Triflag, that was what they had played. The game had been popular in Herezoth for years, teaching many of the lower class basic math before making inroads across the sea.

  “Dorane and I used to play that all the time. We’d pool our coins and split it halves to bet with. At the end we’d redistribute, ‘cause we didn’t play for money. We played for caramel apples, the ones they sell outside the Temple sometimes. Loser bought.”

  “Caramel apples?”

  “I guess today we’d play for drinks, if I’d seen him more than three or four times in the last ten years. Grew apart when he started university. Beer wasn’t exactly an option when we were ten.”

  “I guess it wasn’t.” Vane paused. “What was Dorane like as a kid?”

  “He was a good friend, for sure. Quiet around people he didn’t know. I don’t think he thought much of himself, so he wasn’t confident, and he wasn’t good at much. He was always trying hobby after hobby: music, dance, theatre, gardening, drawing…. Had no real passion for any of it. Me, I was a dancer, and a sharp one. Dorane was decent, but not great. His signals to his partner weren’t strong enough.”

  “A weak lead.”

  “He grew jealous of me and gave it up. Didn’t give himself time to improve. He’d turn sour when I’d talk about dancing, so I stopped talking about it, but he stayed jealous all right, and turned callous to boot. The bastard, when he showed up to ask about the princes…. He was putting me in a spot, and he knew it. He didn’t give a damn what I was risking. He enjoyed it. It was like he needed the upper hand, to prove somehow he was better than me at something.”

  “Prove to whom? You or him?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Vane. “If Dorane was that smug, if you knew he was using you….”

  “Why’d I let him? Hell if I know,” Treel repeated. “He did save me from a mad dog once, and he used to be nice enough. He’s also pretty damn powerful.”

  “He threatened you?”

  “Wish I could say he had. It would give me a legal defense. He didn’t, though, not directly. He did make clear he wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t pull my weight in his ploy. It was easy to imagine what an unhappy Dorane might do.”

  “Where’s he now, Treel?”

  “If I knew that, I’d hunt him down myself. I did pull my weight, and what does he do? Leaves me to the wolves, that’s what. I knew he would. I knew he’d changed, and part of me’s glad to just be rid of him, but all the same….”

  “He’s a cad,” said Vane. “He’s a brute for threatening those boys and a cad for leaving you to your own devices.”

  “That’s life,” said Treel. “Like I said, it wasn’t a big surprise. What surprised me was you finding me in here. I could have sworn you’d be in the throne room.”

  “I’ll admit, when I learned Dorane had a spy, you’re not what I imagined. I figured someone in the army. Someone who supports the Fist, who has magic himself. Someone who….”

  “Someone literate,” said Treel.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “From your end, I’d expect that too. That was the genius of Dorane using me. If you hadn’t caught me red-handed….”

  “I’d never have suspected you.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about the son of a bitch. Let’s play. I’m dealer. We’ll see who takes five out of nine rounds. If I win, you pay for my defense. You’re a duke, so you must have the money.”

  “Just hold on, that’s my parents’ money. They died to protect the king, both of them. I’m not sure they’d approve of me helping the man who helped kidnap his sons. Feeding your family’s one thing….”

  “If I win, you pay my way,” Treel insisted. “If you win, I….” Treel’s eyes burned with hope, a very vague hope. “Ingleton, how old were you when your father died?”

  Vane studied the spy with suspicion. “Some months.”

  “How much do you know about him?”

  “Precious little.”

  “How’d you like to know more?”

  Vane scoffed. “From you? You don’t know a thing about my father.”

  “I beg to differ. I lost my father too when I was young, so his only brother raised me. My uncle was butler to a noble, and liked to tell me stories about work when we’d go hunting. Guess which duke he served?”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “I’m not. Ingleton—the late Ingleton—detested carrots.”

  So did Vane. “Anyone could say that. How should I know what the man ate?”

  “He had three sisters. None of them survived childhood.”

  “A fact like that’s common knowledge. You could have learned it anywhere.”

  “He visited their graves three times a year.”

  “I’d have to verify that.”

  “Ingleton had a quill,” said Treel. “An uncommon quill. It was silver, and molded to look like a feather. My uncle said it was a gift from someone, maybe the duke’s father, or grandfather, for his…. was it his wedding? He wrote with nothing else. Turned three rooms upside down once when he lost it. Well, I found one like it here, with that journal beneath the mattress. I thought maybe Zalski had one like it, or the royal family, and someone forgot they’d left it in this room. But that’s not the case, is it? That’s your father’s quill. Well, your quill now.”

  Vane’s hand began to shake. “How could you know that quill was a wedding gift?”

  “Because my uncle was your family’s butler. Mentioned once that quill alone could probably have fed us for a month with what it’d fetch on the black market. Just in passing, of course. My uncle was
no thief.” Treel paused. “So what do you say? Do we play some Cradle?”

  “And you tell me about my father if I win? If that’s your offer, it’s not much of one. I can ask the king about him anytime I want.”

  “A man’s servants know him better than his superiors ever will. Don’t you pretend otherwise. Everyone puts on airs before the man who can give him a leg up. What need would your father have to impress his butler?”

  Treel had a point, a valid point. He could describe Vane’s origins in ways Rexson never could. Vane gambled little, it was true, but he was not unlucky; he generally won a bit more than half the time.

  “Deal the cards.”

  Treel dealt six to each player. Vane set two cards aside as required, and after Treel did the same the prisoner cut the deck. The card selected, which would act as a part of each hand, was the Deuce of Knowledge.

  “That’s no good,” said Treel. He laid down the King of Sorcerers, the card that allowed any player to cut the deck a second time. The new card was the Ace of Blades, which actually served Vane better than the first; he held the Seven and Eight of Blades, the Six of Fortune, and Ten of Sorcery. The value of his cards and the ace, which counted eleven, summed to forty-two. After adding five points for each set of cards that made twenty-one (the ace and ten, and six-seven-eight) he had fifty-two points. Subtracting the seven points he had discarded, a deuce and five, left him with forty-five.

  In addition to the King of Sorcerers for ten, Treel held a pair of eights, which would only score as a single card, and the Six of Fortune. With the ace he had cut for eleven, he scored only forty points before his deductions. Vane won the first round. The sorcerer took the second as well, then lost five straight.

  “Double or nothing,” Vane proposed. “One more hand, double or nothing. Is your uncle still alive?”

  “He is.”

  “I win, and you tell me where to find him. I’d like to speak with him. You win, and whatever your defenses cost, I’ll give your sister that same amount on top of paying fees.”

  Treel could not pass up the chance to give his family such security. Sure, Ingleton had promised not to let the women starve, but that was a far cry from the kind of comfort Treel could provide with one more winning hand. Vane, though, scored one point more than his opponent.