Magebane (58 page)

The terrain changed again, from flat forest to rocky hills and sudden cliffs, and even more lakes. The road wound and dipped and rose again, rounding vast sheets of ice, running alongside rivers, climbing hills, plunging into dark valleys. About noon it began to snow, at first lightly, but more and more heavily as they drove.

Brenna began to see bright flashes of blue light reflected off the snow outside. “Lightning?” she said out loud.

The cadaverous mage they had collected in Berriton, whose name she had gathered was Anniska, grunted. “Lord Falk clearing the way,” he said.

Brenna glanced over her shoulder at the wall, covered in plush red velvet, from which the carriage's welcome warmth radiated. “Will the coal last?”

Anniska laughed. “I doubt he's drawn on it at all. I know you can't feel it, but we can.” He inclined his head at the guard, who nodded back.

“Feel what?” Brenna was just glad to finally have someone who would talk to her.

“The Cauldron,” Anniska said. “We're close enough to draw on it directly. We can save our coal for the return trip.”

“Oh.” Brenna felt a chill that the warm wall behind her could do nothing to lift, and hoped she would be making that trip with them.

The snow slowed their travel, so that it had grown dark again by the time they reached the last shelter; dark, but not as dark as it would have been anywhere else, because now even the snow could not hide the glow of the Cauldron. When Brenna got out, the whole sky was red, a sullen, sulky red that flickered and flowed disturbingly.

She looked north. The road climbed, zigzagging, up a steep ridge. At its crest, the spruce trees were black cutouts against the bloody glow.

Inside the shelter, the driver and guard busied themselves with making food. Falk and Anniska sat talking together in low voices in one corner of the high-ceilinged main room, in chairs made of branches lashed together, upholstered in deerskin. Brenna sat in another near the huge fireplace, staring at the flames. No one made any move to prepare sleeping quarters. Instead, they waited.

Brenna could only pick at the plate of venison, potatoes, and carrots put in front of her. She managed to eat a little bread and drink a little water, but that was all her stomach would allow. The two mages seemed no more interested in eating than she did, and even their conversation died away as the evening dragged toward midnight.

But finally Falk said, “It's time,” and got to his feet. Anniska followed him to the door and joined him in pulling on coats and boots once more. The guard materialized behind Brenna's chair. “Miss,” he rumbled.

Brenna wished she hadn't eaten even the little she had. Her insides felt like water and her knees like green twigs, but she managed to stand and pull on her own coat, hat, gloves, and boots.

Mother Northwind
, she prayed,
I hope to the SkyMage you were telling me the truth
.

If the witch hadn't told her what Falk intended for her, how would she be feeling now, she wondered? Just as terrified by the strange silence that gripped everyone as they once more climbed into the magecarriage?

No, she thought. Worried, puzzled, but without this gut-wrenching terror, because she would never have thought that Falk meant to kill her.

And suddenly over top of the fear came a surge of anger at the witch, always manipulating, telling her what she had told her just so she wouldn't tell Falk that Mother Northwind was not the ally—or tool—he seemed to think her.

If I live through the next hour
, she vowed to herself,
I
will
tell Falk what I know, and to the Cauldron with the consequences!

Then she winced at that common but, given the circumstances, unfortunate oath. It might not be consequences that were consigned to the Cauldron this night.

The magecarriage surged forward, up the hill, toward the lowering red clouds. Brenna gripped the hanging strap dangling by her head so tightly her knuckles popped, and held on.

They climbed, switching back and forth, up the steep slope. The clouds drew closer and closer until Brenna was convinced they would plunge into them before they finally crested the ridge, but suddenly they were over the top and switchbacking down the other side . . . and as the path of the magecarriage turned her window toward the north, she caught her first glimpse of the Cauldron, and thought her heart would burst through her chest as it began to race in terror.

A vast lake of molten rock stretched into the snowveiled distance, its crust of black shot through with lightninglike red cracks and, in places, wide, slow-moving rivers of bright yellow. The stench of sulfur rose from it, and already she could feel its heat, the temperature inside the carriage rapidly approaching that of a steam bath. She took off her hat, then her gloves, stuffing them into one of her coat pockets, then had to open her coat. Across from her, Anniska did the same; the guard remained stoically uniformed.

She soon wished she could shed the coat altogether, but there was no room to wriggle out of it, and so she sat and sweated and watched the red light reflect off the sheen of moisture on the faces of her companions.

Then, suddenly, they stopped. The carriage rocked as Robinton and Falk jumped down. Robinton, no longer wearing his enchanted warmcoat, came to the side of the carriage. He opened the door and lowered the folding steps. “Miss,” he said, and held out his hand to help her to the ground.

Mouth dry, and not all the sweat on her body from the heat of the Cauldron, she let him assist her. Once on the ground, she immediately took off her coat and held it out to Robinton. He took it without a word and tossed it back into the carriage as her guard and Anniska climbed down unaided.

Now, for the first time, she could hear the Cauldron as well as see and smell it, a deep rumbling vibration that shook her to her very bones.

Falk stood at the front of the carriage, watching her, also coatless, wearing his usual uniform of dark gray, silvered hair tinted a fiendish red by the Cauldron. The fiery lake's surface now lay just fifty feet or so below the broad, flat ledge, covered with crushed black rock where the road ended. Past Falk, Brenna saw a tower, built at the very edge of the precipice, with an outthrust platform near its top. Falk turned and gazed up at it avidly. “The Cauldron Observatory,” he said, almost the first words he had spoken to her since they had begun this journey. “Our destination.”

“Why have you brought me here?” Brenna demanded, remembering she wasn't supposed to know. “Were you so afraid I would run away again that you dared not leave me behind?”

Falk laughed. “No,” he said, but he didn't answer her question. “Bring her,” he instead commanded the guard, who seized her right arm and half-propelled, half-dragged her toward the tower.

As they neared it, she saw it was made of the same black volcanic rock as the gravel that crunched beneath her feet, gigantic blocks of it, more massive even than the limestone blocks of the Palace. A door of dull silvery metal, tinged red like everything else by the Cauldron's light, glistened despite the heat beneath a magic-betraying layer of frost. Falk reached out his still-gloved hand and touched it, and with a slight flash of blue, it opened. Inside, magelights sprang to life, coldly illuminating the start of a winding staircase.

Up that staircase they went, Falk leading the way, Anniska behind him, then Brenna, then her guard. Robinton remained with the coach.

Though the tower was no higher than a wing of the Palace, the climb seemed endless to Brenna, as though the top were receding even as they approached it; but then, after an eternity but still all too soon, they suddenly reached the staircase's end. Falk opened another magically sealed door, and they stepped out onto the platform Brenna had first seen from below.

It was an alarming construction, for it had no guardrail of any sort. Brenna hung back, trying to stay close to the tower, but Falk made an impatient gesture and the guard dragged her forward to where the MageLord stood, what seemed to her dangerously close to the edge.

For a moment she entertained the fantasy of lunging at him and pushing him over the side, but the guard never released her arm, and even if he had, she knew she was just as likely to go over the edge herself; and now, looking down unwillingly, she saw that they were right over the Cauldron, at a place where one of the yellow-hot rivers of stone welled up, flowing a few dozen feet on the surface before plunging once more beneath the black crust. The heat struck her face like a blow, and she jerked back.

Falk, though, peered down avidly. He closed his eyes and spread his hands. “Ah, Brenna,” he murmured. “You don't know what you're missing, having no magic. The power available here is . . . unbelievable. When a MageLord stands here, he feels he can do anything.”

“You seem to think you can do anything no matter where you are . . . my lord,” Brenna said. “Without regard for the law or the rights of others.” Her own temerity surprised her; but after all, she thought,
What have I got to lose? He already means to kill me.

Falk shot her a look, one eyebrow raised. “Without regard to the law? Brenna, I am a MageLord. The only law in this Kingdom is the will of the Twelve. We write the law, we administer the law, and if we choose, we can change the law. And as for the rights of others . . . sometimes the needs of the Kingdom are more important than the rights of any one individual. Here, tonight, is one of those times . . . and here, tonight, the needs of the Kingdom will finally be met.” He flicked a finger, and a magelink globe popped into existence, floating in space ten feet in front of them, over the Cauldron. Falk flicked his hand again, and the magelink expanded, swelling until it was as wide as Falk was tall. He laughed. “So much energy,” he said. “Enough to power the Great Barrier and the Lesser: all that energy constantly pouring into those two structures, and all the effect it has had here is to cause the Cauldron to crust over a little more than it otherwise would. Now . . .”

Suddenly, the magelink came to life, and Brenna gasped. She had seen magelinks used before, but they were small, and since they had been Falk's, they had typically shown the rather homely face of Brich.

But this . . . this was like a window, crystal-clear, so real she felt she could have stepped off of the platform and into the luxurious bedchamber it showed, right next to the huge canopied bed, hung with scarlet curtains . . .

. . . and then the image changed, moved, as the magelink at the other end drifted toward the bed, through the curtains.

She found herself looking down at the bed, the effect making her stagger. The guard's grip tightened on her arms.

Two men in the bed, one very young, her own age or younger, one older, perhaps fifty, lay spooned together in the bed beneath a sheet of pale blue satin. Brenna recognized the older man instantly, from dozens of official portraits, as King Kravon.

The younger man appeared to be feigning sleep. He lifted his head and glanced up toward the magelink, and nodded. Then he carefully disengaged from the King, who slept on unnoticing, and raised himself to a sitting position, the sheet falling from his naked body. He reached to the head of the bed and from somewhere . . . Brenna couldn't tell where . . . drew out a dagger. The image was so clear Brenna could even see his youthful face reflected in the glistening blade. Falk let go of her right arm, though his left kept its ironlike grip, and she heard his own dagger slither from its sheath.

Her heart raced so fast she thought she would faint. She couldn't take her eyes off the image, even as she felt the guard step back and Falk take his place. The MageLord suddenly let go of her arm and instead wrapped his left arm across her breasts, pinning her and pulling her close, his body pressing as tightly against her as though they were lovers like the men in the image.

Mother Northwind lied, or she's failed
. Brenna's thoughts came in frightened bursts, like rabbits breaking from cover as hunters closed in, dashing back and forth in a vain attempt to escape the arrows picking them off one by one.
The King is going to die.
I'm
going to die . . .

The young man leaned forward again, reaching toward the King's throat. Brenna could hear Falk's own quick breathing above her, could feel him trembling against her. He ground his hips into her buttocks and, with shuddering disgust, she felt his engorged manhood. Trapped between him and the Cauldron, she could do nothing but watch the King's death and await her own, as unstoppable, it seemed, as the rivers of lava below her.

But then, just as the knife approached the King's throat, and Falk's knife lifted toward her own, the boy stopped moving.

Falk's arm tightened so much she winced. “Do it,” he whispered. Then, shouting, “Damn you, boy, do it!”

The boy drew the knife back as though about to make the fatal thrust, Falk's blade kissed her neck, and Brenna thought her heart would stop . . .

. . . and then the boy turned the knife and plunged it into his own throat, ripping it from side to side in one quick motion that opened an enormous gaping red mouth in his pale skin.

The King woke screaming as blood fountained across him. He rolled over and screamed again as he saw the boy above him, kneeling, the gush of blood already lessening. The boy's hands had fallen limp to his sides; the knife had dropped onto the pillows. His head was tilted back . . . too far back . . . and his eyes, wide, blue, already glazing over, stared up at the magelink . . .

. . . then he pitched forward and fell across the screaming, naked King, who, painted in red, scrambled out of the bed and out of the image coming from the magelink . . .

. . . which winked out of existence an instant later.

Falk had frozen in place. Brenna, beneath her horror, felt a surge of hope that she might yet live . . . if Falk didn't simply throw her into the Cauldron anyway in a fit of fury.