The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (9 page)

Kansten’s face darkened. “Zalski knows?”

“It was all so sudden. I met the League by chance, completely by chance, you have to understand that, and we were set on right after by Zalski’s elite guard. Some of them got away. That’s all it takes, isn’t it? They’d lagged behind, or they were a second patrol. We think they saw me. At least, they ran from us. I’m not sure why.”

For some reason, Kansten’s demeanor changed. Her negative air dissolved. “The League could’ve killed them, that’s why. They had news to get to Zalski, and they thought that was most important. Listen, it doesn’t matter. You found the League first. You could have found the guard. They got away, but they didn’t drag you with them. I’m almost glad Zalski knows of you. I hope it disturbs his sleep!

“Kora, you really must be the Marked One. The terror, the forced allegiance, the taxes that’re causing ruin: you’ll end it all, every bit of it. Zalski won’t let the word get out, of course. Not to the people. They’ve been praying for the rise of the Marked One for years. Can you imagine the uprising? He’s frightened, Kora, frightened of you, and when people are frightened they do stupid things. He’ll trip himself up. We just have to wait our chance…. You have to tell the others what you are.”

“I will,” said Kora. “Or I, I’ll let them see the ruby. I’d appreciate it, though, if what happened with Markulas stays with you.”

“The same goes for me,” said Kansten. “We shouldn’t say a thing, not a thing. There’s no way to know there’s any truth to it.”

“No way at all,” agreed Kora. After having her fortune told, Kansten distrusted the art to some extent, and her loss of respect made perfect sense to her companion. In fact, her refusal to deem the cards accurate made Kora, who was tempted to believe, feel better about that tombstone.

Kansten righted her chair, then noticed one of the stools across the room. “Someone left some parchment on their seat,” she said. Kora picked it up. It was untitled, a list of some twenty-odd names.

“That’s the hit list Menikas found. I saw Laskenay reading it this morning.” Kora held out the parchment to Kansten. “She thinks they’re all from Hogarane. Take it. I might recognize someone, and I don’t want to.”

Kansten scanned the list, struggling to read, focusing so intently that Kora’s last words passed over her. “Fo…. Foden, would that be? I like that. They had a nice name, poor devils.”

Kora’s heart skipped a beat. “What did you say?”

“Foden,” Kansten repeated. “Sounds familiar somehow. Two of them.”

“Let me see that.” Kora almost ripped the parchment. She let her eyes skim the list until she found what she was looking for near the bottom, beneath Mr. Gared’s brother’s name. Her stiff arm dropped the sheet.

“Sedder’s parents.”

“What? How’d they die? Does Sedder know about this?”

“Does he know Zalski killed them? Not a clue. They got sick, died within a week of each other.”

“Poison,” said Kansten. “There are lots to choose from, some slow-acting enough to pose as illness once Zalski, um,
improves
them. They got hi
s old man when Sedder was out. A
meal Sedder never ate, it had to be. He’s lucky. Some of Zalski’s henchmen would have killed him too, for good measure.”

“But why? Why would Zalski kill the Fodens? Were they part of the League?”

Kora’s legs felt dangerously close to giving way, but she stayed standing. Kansten said, “If they were, I didn’t know them. Don’t think I ever heard their name before Sedder joined up. You and Sedder are so new, I doubt even Menikas realizes who those people were.”

Kora ran a hand through her hair. She could not feel her fingers. “I have to tell Sedder. He has to know this.” Kansten led her to a seat, her arm rough but steadying.

“You’ve had a shock. There’s nothing you can do right now, just breathe for me. Breathe.” Kora took a heavy and painful breath. “Listen, talk to Menikas when you get a chance, because he might know something. I doubt it, but he might. In the meantime, don’t let this get to you. You knew before that they were dead, and so did Sedder. I don’t mean that heartlessly, but….”

“No,” said Kora, “you’re right. You’re right, I just never imagined….”

Kansten put a consolatory hand upon her shoulder.

445

CHAPTER FIVE

The
Librette Oscure

Kora left her forehead exposed, so her fellow Leaguesmen would notice the ruby when they returned to the lodging house. Lanokas and Bennie were the first to come back. The redhead smiled, while the noble assured Kora, “You’re doing the right thing. I knew you would, and before too long.”

Kora did not believe him for a second. “And how is that, exactly?”

“You had to accept it for yourself, that was all.”

Kora protested, “I didn’t accept a thing. I’m letting everyone judge for themselves what it means.”

“A perfectly reasonable stance,” he said.

“Any luck with the
Librette
?” asked Kansten.

Bennie said, “We went to five or so antique shops on the north side of town. You’d be amazed how many things there are in those places. And that was after Laskenay said only to look at half of everything in any one trip. We’ll take the other half tomorrow.”

“We did no better,” said Kora. “We had no clue where to start, but that’s true of all of us.”

The rest of the League trickled in, group by group. They all reacted differently to the gem, but there was no disputing the change in atmosphere
. E
ach person seemed more energetic, or more hopeful. Kora picked the perfect time to make her revelation, because the day’s search had frayed everyone’s nerves.

Laskenay was the next to make her way back. Already privy to Kora’s secret, her ice blue eyes brightened, she said from the corner of her mouth, “Not the Marked One, hmm?” and Kora had to repeat the disclaimer she gave Lanokas. Menikas then entered, with Sedder. The League’s chief was the only person who said nothing, but he jabbed Kora supportively on the shoulder. Sedder said her father would be proud, and plopped himself next to her on the floor. She was glad to have him near, though she felt awkward around him after reading his parents’ names on that list, and was almost relieved when Lanokas called him away. Ranler, on seeing Kora, stood stock still in the doorway. “It’s about time something good happened,” he quipped. Neslan let out a joyful holler that caused Bennie to clasp a hand over his mouth; he smiled for a full hour afterward.

No one brought a thing back with them, but no one but Laskenay seemed perturbed by their failure after seeing or being reminded of the stone on Kora’s forehead. When Menikas asked who would like to partner whom for the next day’s search, Kora and her childhood friend said they’d like to go together. The chief consented. “You can finish what we started this afternoon,” he told Sedder. “There looked to be a shop on every corner, we didn’t get to half to them.” Kansten, it so happened, would be able to join them, as Galisan’s men were entering the hunt.

Later that night, when Menikas, Neslan, Kansten, and Bendelof headed to their rooms across the street, Sedder stayed behind with Kora. They followed the others outside for a private word, Laskenay warning them not to discuss the League.

The streets were close to empty. The hour was nearing midnight, and what people were about were heading home. Kora guessed they came mostly from the taverns, since more than one specimen had trouble walking straight and a few were still drinking from flasks, spilling more on their tunics than what actually reached their mouths. The only soldier in sight was far enough away that Kora almost did not see him for what he was. She sat on the curb, which was somehow much cleaner than the street, provided one ignored the patches in front of doorsteps, and straightened the bandana she had put back on as Sedder sank down next to her.

“I hate this thing,” she muttered.

“Can you believe we’ve barely talked since this started?”

“We’ve barely talked since Zalski came to power,” she responded. Neither party was responsible. There was simply no time beneath the new regime to visit old friends who lived miles away. People toiled from dawn to dusk to pay half the taxes demanded of them.

Sedder asked, “Is that why you came to town Wednesday? Because the bakery doesn’t let me work Wednesdays?”

“I didn’t think about the coal coming
through. I didn’t think at all.
I should have just gone earlier. Those shipments always come in the middle of the week.”

“Well, it was a nice surprise when you came to the door. And a bit like old times to spend the morning in town. As for everything that happened after, well….” He stumbled over his tongue. “How are you hanging in there?”

Kora almost assured him she was adapting, but remembered the tombstone card and the hit list. Her throat seemed to swell up on her; there was no point lying to him, he would hear the truth between her words. “I’m not hanging in,” she said. “I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing, and I can’t stand that. I hate feeling lost. My heart won’t let me the rest of me catch up to it, my muscles ache because I’m tense all the time…. It’s like when we were kids at the market that day with your mother, and we stopped when we saw that puppy with its fur all matted hiding behind a stall. By the time we coaxed him out to us she was gone. I was terrified.”

Sedder forced a smile. “She came back three minutes later, you know. And I got my first dog in the bargain, the sweetest one I had.”

“So that ended well, sure. But this?
This?
How can this possibly end in anything but horror? I know the Giver’s using us to do his work, or will be. I just wish I knew how or for what purpose, because when all is said and done I can’t imagine we’ll make any difference. It
is
thanks to him you’re with me, and I do think I’m where I need to be, I really do. And that’s something, it…. Sedder, I miss home so much.”

He put a sheltering arm around her. “I missed it before we left, missed what it used to be. My God, there are things in life you assume will always be there. You make your plans, you see things unfolding a certain way….”

“And then everything goes straight to hell.” Kora dropped her eyes to the street in front of her. She wanted to tell Sedder about that piece of parchment sitting in the room they just had left, about how his parents’ names were on it and what she thought that meant. That was impossible, though, at least until she proved what she suspected. She ended up saying, still staring at the cobblestones, “You saved my life, you know. When we met the….” She almost said
the League.
“When we met the others. That arrow might have killed you, if my shield….”

“Then you saved my life too. We should shake hands,” (they did so), “call it even, and forget it. We have other things to worry about.”

The
Librette.
Her family. What had happened to
his
family. Kora conceded the point. “I hope Zacry and my mother understand why I….”

“They do. They’re frightened out of their minds for you—or jealous, in Zac’s case—but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand. You can’t do anything for them at this point, as awful as that sounds. It’s all already done, everything that could be. You need to concentrate on yourself, and that means getting rest. Listen, we shouldn’t be talking about this anyway.”

“You’re right,” said Kora. “We should both get some sleep. We have a full day tomorrow.” He squeezed her hand, and she returned to her apartment, he to his. At least, she thought, they could spend tomorrow together.

* * *

Kora, Sedder, and Kansten set off the next morning with low expectations. Of the three, Kansten had the best idea how to carry out the search. Kora and Sedder would enter a shop and start browsing. Kansten would wait a minute or two and then walk in, so no one would suspect she knew them. She could look at shelves the others passed over; they would all appear more natural that way. The plan made sense, even helped to raise Kora’s spirits, until she left the third shop empty-handed and with a pounding headache, her throat screaming for a glass of water.

“We’ll never find this thing,” she moaned when she saw the size of shop number four.

Kansten said, “We’re going about this the wrong way. A blind search is good for nothing. We’re looking for a book, right? An enchanted book. What’s the best way to disguise a book so no one’ll find it?”

Sedder pulled them around to a narrow alley beside the shop, away from the street. “As another book,” he said. “Maybe another spellbook, one radically different. No one would see it for what it was.”

“The perfect mask,” said Kora. “Kansten, what do you think?”

“I think we’re on to something. It narrows the search, if nothing else, so I say we go with it. Laskenay might murder us when she finds out, mind you….”

“That’s
a problem,” said Sedder. “And here’s another: spellbooks aren’t exactly common. Where would we even start to look for one?”

Kora and Kansten glanced at one another, and Kansten grimaced. Kora knew they were thinking of the same man. They said together, “Markulas.”

“Back again, I see.” The fortuneteller’s voice was as crisp and dry as Kora remembered. His leathered face showed no inkling of surprise. “You brought a companion this time. I guess he hasn’t come for a reading?”

Kansten fixed Markulas with a gaze that bordered on loathing. “You guess correctly.”

Before Kansten could antagonize the man whose help they needed, Kora spoke above her.

“We came to ask you something. This may seem strange, but we, um….”

Sedder finished when her voice drifted off. “Do you know how we would go about
looking
for spellbooks? You see, I’ve developed an interest….”

“An academic interest, I’m sure. You’re not the only one.”

Markulas passed to the back of the shop, where he moved his cards to a chair and tried to pry open the antique chest he used as a table with one of the candlesticks he normally stored on top of it. Before he could, someone new walked in, a middle-aged woman with bushy, honey-colored hair. She looked composed for the most part, and determined, but her right hand gave her away; she had balled it into a shaking fist.

“A reading?” Markulas asked, without waiting for an answer. “Step this way. We can sit on the floor while these three root for what they need in the store proper.”

Sedder and Kora tugged the chest to the shop’s front. It might have been filled with lead, it was so heavy, but they only had to move it a small distance, and Markulas was soon able to shut the curtain. Kora heard him tell the woman, “Four pieces of silver. Now pick three numbers, any number less than two hundred.” After that, not a sound passed through the curtain; Markulas must have been whispering. Kora thought back on her own reading and almost shuddered. Sedder’s voice brought her back to the present moment.

“Why would the man make us lug this thing?”

Kora said, “He must always do readings in the back. Always. He’s strange.”

“Well, help me open this, will you?”

The chest had no lock, but something on the inside weighted the lid. All three Leaguesmen together could barely pull it open. When they did so, they discovered an iron bar tied to a metal ring on the cover’s flipside. Sedder massaged an aching hand.

“Well, that’s interesting.”

Kora said, “The chest is valuable. He doesn’t want it stolen.”

Sedder knelt to examine its contents. “Spellbooks,” he announced. “At least ten.”

They removed every tome, making three piles. Kora’s books looked more ancient than the chest itself. Most of the writing had faded through the years, and some had discolored pages; others were missing them in fistfuls. Kora gingerly leafed through them, but none contained particularly dark spells. Healing spells filled the first: incantations to close wounds, replenish burned skin, get rid of scars. The second was in worse condition and taught magic much less powerful. Its contents did things like make hair grow, or make freckles appear. If either tome was dark magic in disguise, the disguise was top-grade.

Kora had just grabbed a third book when the woman shut away with Markulas half-uttered, half-tried to suppress a cry of shock. She tore through the curtain, her face in her hands, and rushed to the door and out the shop, almost knocking over an entire shelf of amulets. Unflustered, Markulas drew the curtain back and took a seat, shuffling his cards on his knees with the same flourish he had shown the day before. Sedder stared at him. Kora whispered to Kansten, “This is hopeless. How do we know if one of these is the blasted
Librette Oscure
?”

At her last words, a mini-explosion erupted at her feet. One of the books, the one with healing spells, spewed black smoke enough to fill the shop, had it spread out; the fumes, however, hovered in a dense cloud around the book. They turned blood red in the blink of an eye and just as quickly disappeared, leaving in their place a tome that looked just as worn as the other but otherwise decidedly distinct. Its cover was as dark as the smoke had been.

Kora snagged the spellbook. Sedder stepped close to her, as though unsure what Markulas might do. His precautions proved unnecessary; the fortuneteller made no movement.

“The
Librette Oscure
,” he said, his voice as curt as ever. “All these years under my very nose. I never had interest in the field of dark magic, my clients either.”