The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (32 page)

             
“And you don’t see a problem with that? Laskenay, he’s obsessed.”

             
“It’s better than his giving up. You know as well as I do we don’t have enough men. Or supplies. The net around us is tightening. We need every scrap of news we can glean.”

             
Kora tried to appease her superior. “I heard enough to know what their objectives are. Alten’ll do his grunt work here.”

             
“Can you find a way to speak with the mayor when you go to Fontferry?”

             
“To speak with…? I have no idea.”

             
“Peare should be warned, if possible. Why don’t you take Ranler and Bennie? They can case his offices to see if we can’t pay this man a visit. If he can be a party to our goals….”

             
“We’ll have an easier time of it keeping him alive.”

             
That was the understatement of the century. Frankly, with the mayor in the dark, Kora could not see how they would ever stop his assassination. “I’ll take Bennie. But isn’t Ranler going to the silos tonight? We shouldn’t throw another job at him the next morning.”

             
“He’s going tomorrow night,” said Laskenay. “If all goes well, he can rest in the afternoon. If it doesn’t, I’ll send Neslan on the second job. He learned a thing or two tailing the elite guard with Bennie back in Podrar.”

             
“With Bennie and Sedder, you mean.”

             
“Of course.” Laskenay bit her lip. “I don’t mean to belittle what Sedder did for us.”

             
“I know you don’t. I just thought his work should be recognized.”

445

CHAPTER TWO

Jonson Peare

             
“Go on,” said Bendelof. She stifled a yawn. “It’ll take us a couple stops to get to Fontferry.”

             
It was five o’clock in the morning, and Kora’s vision of the apartment in the pre-dawn darkness was more of outlines than of objects. Her sack was heavier than usual, with the additional weight of the
Librette
, and she moved it to her other shoulder. “
Despareska
,” she muttered, and rubbed her eyes before transporting herself to the forest between Podrar and Yangerton. The clearing was silent, unoccupied except for a squirrel digging in the earth and a couple of twittering jays. Kora returned for Bendelof and Ranler.

             
“Put out your hands,” she said. Bendelof jumped at the disembodied voice, and some seconds after, all three were in the clearing. Kora let go their fingers and staked out the next stop, a hillside that would hide her companions from the road. It was the place she had first seen Hal. The third and final destination was Fontferry itself: to be precise, Wheatfield’s dilapidated barn. Ranler and Bendelof popped into existence before its doors, a person-sized gap between them that Kora filled a moment later.

             
“You see the fence over there?” she said. It lay beyond what had once been rows of corn but was now a mass of weeds and shin-high grass. “Climb over it. You should be able to se
e the road to town from there. Head north and
I’ll catch you up in the square, at the clock tower.”

             
Ranler said, “You have something else to do?”

             
Laskenay had warned Kora, and Kora thought it a good idea, not to let anyone know she was moving Hansrelto’s spellbook. Kora had even gone so far as to burn Teena’s letter, so that nothing could connect her to the woman if her sack fell in the wrong hands. “If you get a start with finding the mayor, I’ll catch up in half an hour. I shouldn’t be longer than that. I’d just be a hindrance casing a building anyway.”

             
Ranler looked put out—he deserved an explanation, his stare was accusatory—but Bennie admitted, “We will
be less obvious with two.”

             
Kora warned, “Be careful in that grass. I don’t know what’s in it. I don’t think any snakes live up here, but I’m not sure.”

             
“We got it covered,” said Ranler, and rolled his eyes. He started across the field, Bendelof following, while Kora made herself invisible and transported yet again.

             
She clutched her chest, winded, as she found herself staring in dawn’s gray light across the Podra River with her back to a second barn. The total distance she had traveled was catching up with her. The door creaked a few minutes later, and she watched as a tiny red-haired woman, holding a basket of eggs, joined her to watch the sunrise. “
Desfazair
,” Kora whispered beneath her breath, but not softly enough. The woman heard and turned her head; spotting Kora, she dropped her eggs.

             
The sorceress lurched forward. “
Mudar
,” she said, and the basket stopped its fall before it smashed its contents. Teena grabbed the handle.

             
“Kora,” she hazarded, though her schoolmate’s daughter had never told her her real name.

             
“Teena, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

             
“That’s all right.”

             
“I’m sorry for sneaking off before. That last time, I mean, when we first met….”

             
“That was months ago, no need to mention it. You poor child, God knows you had your reasons to be skittish, and I wasn’t exactly subtle.”

             
“I felt horrible after your letter. Like I’d snubbed you. I guess news of me has reached up here since then?”

             
“I’m not the only one in the village who’d recognize your name, we can put it that way. I knew you’d been busy. I didn’t realize how busy.”

             
“Teena, I need you help.
We
need your help. I hate to ask you, I do, but there’s no one else.”

             
“I already told you and I meant every word, anything I can do….”

             
Kora pulled the
Librette
from her sack. It was disguised as its author had enchanted it, as a book of generic healing spells. “This is…. I can’t tell you what this is. You don’t want to know. But someone wants it, very much, another someone people up here know much about.”

             
“I follow you.” Teena’s expression tightened, and she stepped away from the tome.

             
“It can’t harm you in any way, not unless he gets to it. If that happens I can’t promise your safety. Everyone at the inn….”

             
“I can imagine what he’d do. Does he know you have…?” Teena pointed at the book.

             
“He suspects. Strongly. But I can’t for the life of me think he’d ever discover my connection with you, much less consider you’re holding this, this thing for me. He thinks it’s in Yangerton. He’s sure it’s there, and when he realizes it’s not, there’s nothing to draw his attention to Fontferry.”

             
“I see. I see, of course there isn’t. That’s why you brought it here.” Teena reached for the spellbook, bracing herself, as though its brushing her skin might shock her. Kora was slow to hand it over, imagining Zalski at the spot where she now stood. All at once, Laskenay’s preference to guard the
Librette
herself made sense. Kora had to reconstruct the logic in trusting it to someone who had no clear affiliation with the League. “What do I do?” asked the innkeeper.

             
“Hide it,” said Kora. “Store it somewhere and forget it. We’ve tried everything to destroy it, we’ve been trying for months now.”

             
Teena glanced at the book she held, her eyes filled with fear. “Is it…. protected, then? By magic?”

             
“Passive magic. I promise you, the thing can’t harm anyone unless he
takes it.”

             
“Wait here,” said Teena. She thrust the
Librette
at Kora and ran in the barn, then rushed back in record time with a shovel.

             
“No one should be up for twenty minutes. Business is slow. We can bury the thing here.”

             
“Let me,” Kora told her. “You should get inside. I’ll dig beneath this corner of the barn.”

             
“Yes,” said the innkeeper. “Yes, all right.”

             
“Teena, I won’t forget this.”

             
“I’m sure you won’t. I, however, am going to try.”  The innkeeper placed her hand on Kora’s cheek. “Good luck to you. Don’t you do anything stupid and get yourself killed, do you hear me? Don’t do that to your mother.”

             
“I’ll try not to.”

             
Teena rounded the corner with her eggs and a swish of her skirt. The thought of Ilana held Kora paralyzed for a full sixty seconds, her chest aching.

             
If I could talk to her, for five minutes. That’s all I need, five measly minutes. She’d know what to tell me…. Come on. Come on, Kora, pull yourself together.

             
Kora turned invisible for the third time that morning and started to dig. To the east, the sun climbed steadily above the river.

* * *

Kora’s first thought when she saw Fontferry’s town square was that Zalski had his reasons, sending Alten to Yangerton’s plaza. The one difference between them was that Fontferry’s had been scaled down. The scaffold stood on the east side, but with the absence of a noose, so it looked like an innocent platform for musicians, or a company of players. To the west was a mini-market of sorts that continued on the square’s southern edge. A sprawling stone construction that had to be Town Hall formed the border to the north, while a clock tower rose in the middle. Bendelof and Ranler had joined a handful of people at its foot.

Though Kora had left Teena’s invisible, she soon that saw her bandana would blend right in in this out-of-the-way town where women wore aprons in public and more tied kerchiefs around their heads than not, and she had ducked behind a tree to cancel her spell a hundred yards from the square. No one had given her a second glance since, which she thought odd, as she was unknown in the area. Then she remembered the sheer number of people who passed through Fontferry each year on pilgrimage.

“There you are!” said Bendelof.

Kora asked, “What did you find?”

“His office is in Town Hall,” said Ranler.

“And?”

“It’s a bust. There’d be four easy ins if this were a night job. Being as it’s day, Peare has guards at the building’s front. I won’t risk going past them, and I won’t fiddle with windows in the sight of the entire town.”

“So there’s no way in?”

Bennie said, “There’s a back door, we think. It’s blocked by a stack of crates and I don’t see how we can move them without attracting major attention.”

Kora smiled. “Leave that to me.”

“What?” said Ranler.

“Just bring me to that door.”

They walked behind Town Hall. Kora saw the crates immediately, four of them, stacked eight feet high. Small shops and homes studded the cobblestone street to their right, and enough passersby streamed through to make things difficult.

“Keep close to the building,” said Kora. “Talk. We’re three friends resting. Not up to anything. Not a care in the world.”

They had reached the crates. “Act naturally, in other words,” said Bendelof.

“Exactly. Act naturally.
Mudar.”

Kora meant to shift the entire stack an inch or so, but due to her exhaustion, only the bottom crate moved. This caused no real problem, since each was two foot square and all of them stayed balanced. Still….

“This’ll take longer than I thought: ten minutes, fifteen, maybe.
Mudar.
” Kora gesticulated as she spoke; the motion aligned the second crate from the bottom with the one below it.

They continued to chat, Kora sliding the crates a mere inch at a time. The process was so gradual no one suspected a thing, especially after Bendelof leaned against the stack to hide the ever-widening sliver of a metal door. After twenty minutes the sorceress exposed a padlock and handle. “Tell me the door swings inward,” she said.

Ranler answered, “It looks to. And the opening’s wide enough, we just need to pick the lock.”

“I’d vanish it, but I’ve hardly energy to stand. The magic I’ve worked this morning....”

“We got this,” Ranler assured her. “Bennie, if you squat down and get to work, we’ll block you in. You got your tools?”

“I got ‘em. You two get in position.”

Kora and Ranler stood at such an angle with the crates and the building that no one from the street could see Bennie in the space between. “You good?” Ranler asked.

“The knob’s placed high and in the way, I’m at awkward angle….”

“Try kneeling,” Kora suggested. “You shouldn’t be too tall on your knees.”

“I don’t have the space. I’m fine squatting, I can get this.”

Bendelof’s skill revealed itself in her silence; she maneuvered metal tools without so much as a clunk. First the exterior lock, then a chain bolt gave way. The one sound that did escape her was a moan of relief when she rose to her full height, massaged her leg, and slipped inside.

Kora was last to enter, careful not to make the hinges squeak as she eased the door shut behind her. She found herself in a storage room filled with shelves and cabinets for documents, everything orderly and glistening, clearly labeled.

“This is not what I expected,” said Bendelof.

“The way’s clear?” Kora asked.

Ranler said, “Seems to be. If someone spots us, don’t lose your heads. Remember, this is a public building.” They hurried into a short, narrow corridor, then turned right to a wider hall with multiple rooms on either side, none opened. The area seemed deserted.

“This is odd,” Bendelof whispered.

Kora whispered back, “Where’s the mayor’s office?”

“No clue,” said Ranler. They came to a fork and chose left, which seemed the way to the heart of the building. They were halfway down the stretch when a man with a great brown beard crossed their path, clearly a local bureaucrat. His clothes were formal but faded, as though he owned one set of work attire and had to wash it often. He looked startled, then wary as he asked, “Can I help you with something?”