The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (10 page)

Kansten drew her dagger and pointed it at the old man. “We’ll be taking the book,” she announced.

“So it seems.” Markulas looked at Kora. “You’ve taken your destiny in your hands. The cards don’t lie. Whoever you are, yours is a name the generations will remember.”

Kora forced the
Librette
in Sedder’s sack with fumbling fingers. Kansten urged, “The one on top my pile, take it too.”

That was the only book Kansten had looked through. Kora did as she said, backing out of the store.

“Give me the sack,” said Sedder. Kora refused.

“I should carry it. I can protect the book if necessary.”

“That shield,” Sedder remembered. “Come on, let’s get away from here.”

The dirt road was empty, which meant no witnesses. Markulas could have a bow….

The trio sprinted off, but the teller did not follow. The trip back to the lodging house seemed to take five times as long as its actual hour and a half. Kora kept imagining the scene that would unfold if a soldier saw fit to stop her and search her belongings. Her courage turned to mush at even a hint of black—she thought it could be a uniform—and sometimes it was, but every supposed guardian of the peace let the three youths pass. How could the army know they carried the book of darkest magic ever contemplated? When Kora thought it over later, she realized most of these men had never heard of the
Librette
. They were not elite guardsmen; for the most part, they were trying to feed their families, nothing more.

Back at the boarding house, Kora’s group found Laskenay reading
The Book of the Book
. She had set some logs in the hearth for when the other Leaguesmen returned. “I’m waiting to hear from Galisan,” she said. “I thought I’d use the time to pore through this, there may be something to guide our search. Why are you three back this early?” Her ice blue eyes lit up, but not too much. “You can’t have found…?”

“We did,” said Kansten. Kora pulled the black-covered tome from Sedder’s sack. Laskenay jumped to her feet, knocking her own book to the floor.

Sedder confessed how they had abandoned their assignment. When he reached the cloud of smoke, Laskenay turned stone gray, and Kora assured her Markulas did not know their names and had seemed to take nothing to heart.

“Kansten took another book too, I don’t know why,” said Sedder.

Kora pulled out the second spellbook and flipped through it. “These are some powerful incantations. There are spells to shoot something in the air, to increase your speed.”

“They’re mostly for combat or survival,” said Kansten. “The drawings….”

Kora flipped to the next sheet. “Yes, here’s one to purify water. And this one,
Fwaig Commenz
….”

The corner of the page curled and darkened. A small line of crimson moved closer and closer to the margin’s edge, toward the words. Kora blew out the tiny flame.

“Starts a fire?” Sedder guessed. Kansten raised a hand to her mouth. Kora stood frozen, staring at the parchment that had started to burn away. Laskenay, with a stoicism to match Markulas, guided Kora to the hearth.

“Stare at the logs,” she said. “Stare at them, truly want them to ignite. Are you concentrating?” Kora took a moment to say she was. Her voice kept sticking in her throat. “Now repeat that incantation.”

“
Fwaig Commenz
.” Nothing happened.

“Try again,” said Laskenay.

“
Fwaig Commenz
,” Kora repeated.

A rush of heat ran through her. Flames erupted from the logs, thick tongues, as though they had been burning for hours. Her heart pounding, her eyes glued to the fire, Kora backed away, shaking her head. “It’s not possible,” she muttered. She threw her headwrap to the floor. “It can’t be possible, I don’t have the mark.” She turned to face the others, her skin ashen. “I don’t have the mark!”

Kansten spoke carefully. “Maybe your mark’s different from the usual one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The ruby on your forehead, it’s glowing.”

Utter silence. The soft crackling of the wood sounded in Kora’s ears like so many claps of thunder. Laskenay was the first to come to herself. “Let’s have a little chat,” she suggested. “Just the two of us.”

“I’m no sorceress,” Kora insisted. “I swear I’m not a….”

Laskenay led her through the doorway on the right. “There’s no reason to panic, none at all. You should probably shut that book, though. You’re about to drop it.” Kora let the spellbook fall onto one of the mattresses that littered the ground.

“When those logs caught fire, I had the strangest feeling….”

“A burning sensation?” said Laskenay. “Down your spine? You grow used to it.”

“Are you…?”

Laskenay pulled up her sleeve to reveal a birthmark, brown, shaped like a triangle on her left forearm. She exposed it only long enough for Kora to get a clear glimpse, then let the fabric fall back. Kora raised her eyes to Laskenay’s face.

“Zalski is my brother. He was born three minutes before me.”

“You’re twins,” Kora whispered. Knees shaking, she lowered herself to the ground. Laskenay smoothed her skirt and used a pile of blankets as a cushion.

“The rest of the League is aware I’m a sorceress. Kansten’s telling Sedder right now. But none of them knows about my family, none but those who knew me before.”

“Lanokas, Menikas, and Neslan.” Kora’s head felt light. “You were all nobles.”

“I come from a line of pure sorcerers, one that goes back generations. Zalski was always proud of that.”

“Laskenay, what do you think the League would do if they found out? Do you think Bennie would care who you’re related to? That Sedder would?”

Laskenay jabbed a finger at her chest. “
I
care. I grew up alongside the man. I should have been able to stop him. I’m here now because I have to be, to set right what I let happen, though I prefer that people think I seek revenge. When I remember how he started…. He had such a good heart when we were small. He was innocent, malleable. If people could have seen him then…. He’s not a monster, I swear to you, he just never could cope with the stigma of magic. He never trusted his friends. He knew they would abandon him should they learn his secret. He was mistaken, but convinced, and throughout the years he told one person alone the truth about himself: his wife. How could I blame him for his silence? Visitors, our elders, they would speak about sorcerers as though they were worms, not knowing what we were. Zalski felt that the world was against him.”

“So he started fighting back.”

“It was instinct for him. Our family had some sp
ellbooks, heirlooms of a type. N
ot many, to be sure, but enough of them. We learned incantations in secret, he and I, as adolescents. I felt uneasy, but I studied with him. I studied those spells.”

“Why in secret?” Kora dared to ask.

“Our father wanted us nowhere near those books. Forbade us to touch them. Zalski hated him for that, because Father was a sorcerer, though he never dabbled with magic. He kept the tomes as he was wary whom they might fall to if he rid his home of them.” Laskenay let out a sad little sigh. “The man meant well. He never suspected the last person who should have access to them was living beneath his roof. Nor did I.

“Zalski called Father a traitor once for not taking up the art. I knew they stopped speaking after that, but never thought my brother was buying spellbooks of his own, amassing incantations of a different type than the ones we learned together, though I should have guessed. I should have guessed what he sought to do.

“I married five years ago,” Laskenay explained. “I saw Zalski little after that. Three years later he took the Palace and killed the king. He killed his own parents.”

“Your parents.”

“My husband, too, died in the revolt. Neslan was in that battle for the throne, he witnessed his death.”

Kora covered her gaping mouth with her hand. “Did Neslan tell you how…?”

“I won’t allow him. I couldn’t stand to know, but I’ve worked more magic in my husband’s memory than I ever did before, because if we’re to have any chance of defeating Zalski we need my incantations. I have never felt empowered, I feel cursed. I work magic from necessity, and it pains me to ask you, truly it does, but you may be called to make that same sacrifice.”

A knot twisted Kora’s stomach. Laskenay’s revelations had so enthralled her, so surprised her, that she had forgotten what spurred the woman to speak in the first place. Now everything came rushing back, with the conviction that, no matter how Kora pleaded, Laskenay would not help her remove the ruby magically
. No
t if the gem proved the source of her sorcery.

“That fire spell was strong, as strong as I could cast it, and I first worked magic fifteen years ago. The first spell cast by a sorceress” (Kora shuddered at the word) “is typically weak. You should have been able to light a leaf on fire, or maybe a sheaf of parchment, but never logs like that. And you’ll only get stronger. Together we might challenge Zalski, should we three come face to face. I’d like to teach you. It would benefit us both.”

Kora bit her lip. Every part of her revolted. “I’ll do it,” she said. Laskenay patted her arm.

“We should probably go out to the other room. The
Librette
….”

Kora would never have said so aloud, but she was curious as to what spel
ls were actually in that book, and s
he was not th
e only one.
Sedder and Kansten were already looking through it.

Kansten said, “Some of these spells are awful, but not all of them. For each incantation to melt someone’s fingers….”

“There is
not
a spell for that,” said Kora.

“…there’s one more morally neutral. This is just a collection of Hansrelto’s work. We might actually use a few things.”

“Not we,” said Kora. “Me. Me and Laskenay. You haven’t said a word about the fire, either one of you.”

Sedder told her, “There’s nothing to say. We’re standing behind you.”

“Completely,” Kansten agreed. “Come look at these spells, they’re really interesting.”

Kansten’s changing the subject, as though sorcery truly were nothing, brought a smile to Kora’s face, and the new sorceress took the
Librette
, Laskenay looking over her shoulder. Most of the incantations were torturo
us, or could be used that way. E
nergy waves designed to disintegrate doors or wa
lls could be sent at a person, b
ut then, thought Kora, so could flames. No wonder people feared magic.

There was an incantation to bind two lives, the caster’s with another, so that the death of either would kill the second. One spell enhanced a sorcerer’s power fivefold, but if the book could be trusted the process meant a physical transformation: elongated limbs, fingers like claws, even two large fangs, all very bestial and very permanent. (“I doubt Hansrelto ever performed that one, but you can believe he kept it in reserve,” said Laskenay.) That piece of magic had its counterpart as well, an incantation to strip a sorcerer of powers.

“How long would that spell last, do you think?” Kora asked.

Laskenay said, “The one to bind magic? It depends on the caster, on his power. If Zalski cast it, I daresay the effects would hold until death. At my hands, perhaps some years.”

“More than enough time.”

“I would have to be in his presence. If something went wrong, and Zalski remembered the incantation….”

Kora turned white. “Anything we throw at him, anything at all, he can send it right back, can’t he? All he needs to know is the proper phrase.”

“The same applies to the spells he casts at us,” said Laskenay. “Only, you wouldn’t be willing to consider most of them.”

“Look at this,” said Kora. She turned back to the book. “An enchantment for an amulet. Kansten, maybe Laskenay could put it on yours. Its effects vary, based on the stone. What is yours, jade? Look at this picture, you should be able to form air currents.”

The blonde’s eyes widened. “Air currents? You mean winds?”

“I mean cyclones.”

“Powerful enough to throw attackers off? Let’s do it.”

Laskenay cut in: under no circumstance would they do a thing then and there, the location was too insecure. Kora flipped the page of the
Librette
; a spell to behead an enemy loomed up at her. “Speaking of things that aren’t safe….”

Laskenay reached over and shut the tome. “That’s enough of that for now,” she said. “Kora, I have something to give you. It slipped my mind until now. Sedder, you need one too.”

“One what?” Sedder asked.

Zalski’s sister opened a shallow, secret compartment in the wall. Ten, maybe eleven metal medallions hung there on leather straps. She motioned for the new recruits to take one, and before Kora slipped hers over her neck she st
udied the medallion’s engraving:
a triangle imposed behind a letter “Z.”

“We chose Zalski’s mark as it won’t endanger us if it’s seen. That was Neslan’s idea. Every Leaguesman wears one, even Menikas and myself. It’s how we identify those people we can trust. Still, keep it beneath your garments. There’s no reason to draw attention to it.”