The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (11 page)

The metal felt cold on Kora’s skin, but she grew used to the sensation, or the heat of her body warmed the medallion. If only she had nothing else to grow accustomed to, she thought, maybe then her stomach might unknot itself.

“Don’t look like that,” Sedder told her. “You learned you can cast spells. What does that really change about you?”

“Everything I thought never could. I need…. Excuse me.”

Kora started for the room where she had spoken with Laskenay. Sedder made to follow her, but Kansten held him back. The door settled closed, and Kora found herself alone except for some mattresses, piles of blankets and pillows, and an old tome with a peeling cover.

She stared at the spellbook she had left there. Every breath she took, she noticed. Her father’s voice echoed in her head, the proverbs he used to recite: “Magic corrupts the mind, all the worse when it joins with its kind.” “Nothing is uncleansable save sorcery and wine stains.”

She felt a stranger to herself. Memory after memory flashed before her, distorted by the unfamiliar and painful emotions they evoked when thrust in the light of her new identity. What acceptance she had known from those closest to her felt tainted, even Sedder’s; with no thought but for their son’s wellbeing, the Fodens would never have let Sedder befriend a sorceress, not for a noble’s manor. Kora’s childhood dreams made a mockery of her. The same insecurities that had plagued Zalski for thirty years rushed upon her in as many seconds, and she almost retched as she thought, “It could have been me. It really could have been.”

No, Kora was different, different in that she would never know the kind of power that man possessed. How was she to risk her life against spells like his? Would Laskenay, would
Sedder
expect her to beat him at a game he had mastered so long ago?

No. That was the answer: no, they would not. They were fully aware she was nothing but a novice. And Kora struggled to convince herself that she had never been the Marked One, that she could not be. Whoever he was, if he existed at all—still she pictured a he, that generic, fairytale knight-type—the Marked One would be someone Herezoth embraced, someone to marshal the people as one; the legend never claimed as much, but that seemed so obvious it went without saying. Well, Kora’s kingdom would never rally behind a sorceress, not after centuries of stigma. Not after the emotional repercussions of a rule like Zalski’s.

“I’m not the Marked One.” The thought calmed her. She let it spread through her body, soaking it up like a sponge takes in water, not allowing herself to doubt what she had decided as, had she been honest with herself, she would have known she must. “I’m not the Marked One.”

445

CHAPTER SIX

Of Sorcery

The best part of that day was anticipating everyone else’s reaction to the news that Kora, Sedder, and Kansten had found the
Librette
. Each Leaguesman wanted to leaf through it, especially Lanokas, who made a joke of falling on his knees and offering Laskenay eternal servitude for five minutes with the book. His efforts proved vain; Laskenay would let no one touch it. Well, not no one. Laskenay would let Kora see it if she asked, but that would involve hiding the fact from the others, and Kora had no real desire to skim through the spellbook anyway; the handful of pages she had seen quashed her curiosity. The only thing she wished more than that the blasted thing had never been written was that she herself had no power to cast its spells. The book and her newfound sorcery were linked in Kora’s mind. She knew they always would be.

Kora did not sleep that night. She hardly closed her eyes, lying restless for God only knew how long. She would never have dared get up if the doors squeaked, but Ranler kept them well oiled, for security reasons. His diligence proved useful in the new day’s first hours. Feeling as sick to her stomach as she ever had, Kora crept the length of the apartment to the washroom and stood before a window, staring at the shutters that blocked her view outside. She knew better than to open them. Instead, she raised her hand to her forehead and tried once more to pry the ruby loose. “Come off,” she hissed. “Why won’t….”

“That’s not going to work,” said a voice behind her. Kora jumped. The room was too dark to see Lanokas; she recognized his voice, her own squeaking as she asked:

“What are you doing up?”

“I hoped to steal a look at the
Librette
, but this one heard me.”

He glanced meaningfully at a shadow beside him, which spoke in his brother’s impatient tone.

“What’s the problem, Kora?”

Menikas had been up late with Ranler, planning to help Galisan with a transport raid now that the League had found its spellbook. As the men had to leave before sunrise, and Menikas would have to return to this apartment anyway to fetch the thief, he had swapped quarters with Laskenay for the night.

“I don’t know,” Kora stammered. “I really don’t know. I found more than a book today, I….”

“You what?” said Lanokas.

Kora remembered the brothers were telekinetic. “I’m a sorceress,” she told them, the first time she ever spoke the phrase. She felt she was admitting her power as much to herself as to the nobles. “I cast a spell by accident. This blasted thing,” she pointed to her forehead, “started glowing, and I just, I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Lanokas looked at a loss for words, but Menikas admitted as much. “We aren’t the ones you should speak with. You’d find Laskenay more helpful.”

“She’s helped me a good deal, even told me her, um, story. I had no idea she and Zalski were related, that I could ever understand his motivation.”

“So that’s what bothers you,” said Menikas. “Don’t let it. Listen, as far as I’m aware you have to speak an incantation to do magic.”

“That’s right,” said Kora.

“And you have ultimate control over what leaves your mouth. Do you plan to use magic responsibly? In accordance to the oaths you took to join the League?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“I don’t know. I never thought of Zalski as a person before, a person who’d been a child, who had a family.”

Menikas’s face, which Kora could see now her vision had adjusted to the dark, contorted with disgust. “A family he slaughtered. For God’s sake, Zalski and I were great friends once, though we never revealed our magic to one another. Through the years I watched him change. I saw him turn more and more from other living souls and choose not to trust anything, not anything or anyone but his wife, she’d be the exception.

“Magic didn’t harden him, he hardened himself. If you worry what people might think if they discover you’re empowered, that’s one thing, but your parallels with Zalski are superficial at most. Don’t feel for him. The rat doesn’t deserve it.” Menikas tried to mask the hatred in his expression, but still it glinted in his eyes. “Anything else on your mind?”

“Not really,” said Kora. Then, “Wait a moment, that list you found in Hogarane, how certain are you it was a hit list?”

Menikas raised his eyebrows, but asked no questions. “The five names I recognized are men who died, and mysteriously. They had reputations in the resistance, though they’d nothing to do with us. There were over twenty names on that list, that’s what gives me pause.”

“So you can’t be sure what it means?”

“It seems pretty clear,” said Menikas. “Why else would Zalski’s elite guard—not his army, Kora, the elite guard—have those names?”

The chief had a point, though Kora wished otherwise. She said, “Did you ever hear about a Ruth or Yinter Foden?”

“I don’t think so.”

Lanokas finally spoke up, catching Kora’s eye. “Why do you ask?”

“Their names were on the list, and I knew them. I knew them fairly well, I thought they’d died of illness, they…. Lanokas, they’re Sedder’s parents.”

Menikas said, “That’s interesting. They had no dealings with us, I can tell you that. If they were
killed on Zalski’s orders, I have no idea why, and I don’t feel comfortable guessing, not with so many unfamiliar names surrounding them.”

Lanokas asked Kora, “You’re not sure whether to tell their son?”

“I don’t think I will, at least not yet. He has no idea they were murdered. How could he? Until I’m sure they were, I don’t see the point in disturbing him.”

Lanokas said, “That’s wise. The dead are the dead, no matter how they reached their end.”

“That’s what Kansten says.” Kora sighed. “I’m guessing you know as little as Menikas about all this?”

“I’ll ask around, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Zalski’s confession.”

Menikas said, “We’ll let you know when we discover something. Now, we should probably get some sleep.” He turned to his brother. “That includes you. Damn you, I have to leave at four.”

Lanokas scowled. “I didn’t wake you on purpose. I just wanted to see the book, to
see
the thing. It’s probably not even here, is it? Laskenay has it.”

Menikas waved his hand. A half-filled pitcher of washwater emptied itself on his brother’s head.

* * *

Against all expectation, Kora did sleep a bit after what Menikas told her about Zalski. When she woke her nausea had gone, though a heaviness settled in her gut as she got up, a weight that had nothing to do with her newly discovered sorcery. Menikas and Ranler had already left, but Laskenay told the others over a breakfast of bread and cured ham to spend the day how they wished, just be ready to move on by nightfall. They would start for Podrar the next morning.

While everyone was making plans and eating apples, Sedder walked over to Kora. He took one look at how she passed her fruit from hand to hand, back and forth, and asked what had her worried. She set her unbitten apple on the table.

“Hogarane’s four days from Podrar,” she said. “Four days if you switch horses, right? It’s been that long since the elites saw
my ruby. And that red shell I brought up, that shield, it’s too much to hope they didn’t see it too. I guess we can’t be sure, but it’s probably today Zalski hears about me.”

Lanokas stood nearby, chatting with Neslan. He turned to listen as Sedder replied, “Maybe he’ll hear about you. Maybe those guards didn’t see you at all. Maybe one fell ill and they stopped on the way to the capital. Don’t drive yourself mad over this, obsessing won’t prevent them reaching Zalski.”

“He’s right,” said Lanokas. “Listen, I know what will cheer you up.”

Bendelof, who was walking to the door, stifled a gasp as her feet left the rug. She rose a foot in the air, then spun to glare at Lanokas and his outstretched arm.

“Showoff.”

“If you wait a minute, Neslan and I will keep you company,” Lanokas said. Bendelof agreed, and he lowered her to the ground while Kora smiled in spite of herself. Kansten promptly pulled the sorceress away.

“I might go off with Ranler when he gets back, he mentioned a tavern I’d regret not getting to. You and Sedder should come with us.”

“I’ll let you know,” Kora told her, not in the least enthralled by the prospect of passing her only free hours in Yangerton with the thief. She was about to grab Sedder’s attention when someone touched her shoulder.

“Would you spend the day with me? In here?”

Despite Laskenay’s soft voice, her words were no request. Kora had to stay. Less than twenty-four hours after learning of her magic was soon, too soon to Kora’s mind, to start learning how to master it, but she resolved herself when the others filed out and Laskenay said:

“There are things we can do to start your training. It came to me last night, the way to manage this. There’s a spell in that book you found….” Laskenay turned to face the door and said, “
Contenay Ruid
.” The dingy white walls, even the rug and the ceiling, took on a faint yellow glow. Kora stared at her fellow sorceress, amazed.

“What did you just do?”

“That’s a sound barrier. No one who isn’t sitting in this room will hear a peep from us, or from any spells we might perform.”

Kora blinked. “You didn’t know that spell before? Or something like it? We have neighbors here, don’t we?”

“The walls between apartments are thick. Great crashes would be heard, but voices…. We’ve thought of all of this, Kora. Before we took these rooms I paid a visit to the couple next door, we ran an experiment to see what noise passed through from here. Are you ready to start?”

“I think so,” Kora told her.

“The first thing you should know about incantations is that you can focus their point of impact, enlarge or diminish it. You were able to set that pile of logs aflame. You could also set just one of them alight.”

“That’s sounds useful, I guess.”

“At times a small effect is called for. Your magic is worthless if you can’t control it, and that’s the truth. If you remember nothing else I teach you, remember that.” Laskenay pointed to the hearth, where Neslan had stacked a new set of logs before leaving. “The key is to focus on the desired outcome. You have to see it in your mind. Can you see that top log, that one log, burning?” Kora said she could. “You know what to do, then.”

“
Fwaig Commenz.
” The top three logs erupted in flame with a crackle.

“That’s not bad,” said Laskenay. “Not bad at all. The more you cast, the more precise you’ll be.” She led Kora to the table then, and they both took seats. “Just a few more facts you should understand: first, all incantations must be clearly voiced. That doesn’t mean they can’t be whispered, but silent casting isn’t possible. Secondly, if your incantation acts upon an object—a person, for instance, or a log—you want to look at the object. Your connection of will is strongest that way.”

“Is it possible to cast looking somewhere else?”

“To cast a spell significantly weaker, yes. Zalski caught one sorcerer working against him. He not only had him blinded, he cut out his tongue before killing him, because that way….”

“That way his magic would be useless,” said Kora. She shuddered.

“Now, I think we should go through the
Librette
.”

Kora stared at her. “Really?”

“I want to destroy it before we leave. We should copy the useful spells first.”

Their work took only two hours, since the women held little interest in most of Hansrelto’s magic. They took their time flipping through the pages, which thankfully failed to illustrate their most gruesome torture methods. Hansrelto’s hand was hard to read, but after fifteen minutes the task grew less tedious. His writing was fairly uniform, a jagged cursive, the main variation being size; incantations appeared above, in slightly larger letters, with intended results described beneath. Once Laskenay had finished with the final spell, she threw the book in the fire.

The flames turned black, then vanished. The undamaged
Librette
was sitting on a pile of half-consumed logs, all of them white and flaky. “I was afraid of that,” said Laskenay. She got up to retrieve the book. “Hansrelto’s far ahead of us.”

“I guess we’re taking the thing to Podrar after all.”

“We’ll see.” Laskenay tried to rip out pages, first by hand, then magically. Kora pulled along with her, but together they could not so much as tear a corner. Laskenay’s fervor failed to cool until a vanishing spell proved useless; then she turned a serious face to Kora.

“Forget the
Librette
, for now at least. We can’t spend all day trying to destroy the thing, your training’s more important. Listen to me, this is a direct order: you will
never
cast a spell when fighting unless you’ve no choice, is that understood?” Kora nodded. “Zalski will know exactly who you are within the month. He’ll learn where you were born, and to whom; where you were educated; the social causes you supported. But he won’t discover you’re a sorceress. That’s a monstrous point in your favor, Kora. I don’t want you to lose it before you absolutely must.”