The Grimjinx Rebellion (16 page)

Or was it? The Palatinate had used magic to search Tree Bag when Kolo was in their custody and found nothing. Kolo had tried hard to hide this from them. Why? Unless . . .

My hands grew cold. I knew what this was. To test my theory, I walked to one of the green-blue torches lit by magical fire on the wall. I touched the top of the pyramid to the flame. The fire vanished in a wink.

So it was true. This was the one thing the Palatinate could never find by magical means. The one and only thing that could have caused all the magical disruption.

The Vanguard.

26

The Rebel Mage

“No thief cries for wasters who want.”

—Allamondas Grimjinx, architect of the Wrathborne Castle cenotaph plunder

I
was
really
hoping that everyone in Slagbog was still there and safe. Mainly because I would have felt guilty if anything bad had happened to them because of me. Also, a small part of me wanted to see the looks on their faces when I walked down the street, accompanied by a half-dozen assassin-monks and a heavily armed Satyran warrior.

But we didn't know what to expect. As a precaution, the Abbey had materialized in the swamp, not far from the village. With Maloch and Luda at my side—not to mention Edilman and the aforementioned monks—we crossed the town's border, prepared for the worst.

What we found was business as usual. The people of Slagbog tended their gardens and chatted in alleyways as if nothing had happened. The Scalander sisters even nodded casually to me, like I hadn't been gone for a day.

Here I'd inexplicably evaded two bloodreavers and brought the most notorious monks in the Provinces as our new allies and no one was even blinking. Some people were just impossible to impress.

It was when I tracked down Da and the Dowager that I finally got a decent reaction. Da picked up Aubrin and pulled Maloch and me tight. Luda threw herself at the Dowager, begging forgiveness for not returning sooner. The Dowager interrupted her, helped Luda to her feet, and shook the Satyran's hand warmly.

I was burning to tell Da about finding the Vanguard, but his reaction to spotting Edilman changed the topic very quickly.

“We can't trust him,” he insisted. Edilman stood stone-faced as Da argued vigorously for casting the abbot from the village. It took me and Aubrin and Luda and Maloch to convince him otherwise. He finally allowed Edilman to stay but only because, he said, we had a bigger problem.

“I had to come clean and tell everyone we're Grimjinxes,” Da said as he led us to the hut where the Home Guard stored their weapons. “Turns out, we're sort of heroes to the other thieves. People admire the way we've kept hidden so long.”

We'd been heroes a lot lately. I'm not sure what our Grimjinx ancestors would think about that. It's not exactly something you race to add to the family album.

Da unlocked the armory. The weapons had been emptied out. Inside was just a chair . . . and the Sentinel tied firmly to it, his back to us. His head was slumped forward. His mask lay on the ground at his feet.

“It was all very . . . spontaneous,” the Dowager explained. “Once the bloodreavers took off after you, the entire village charged the Sentinel. They overpowered him in no time.”

“Jaxter!”

Callie ran down the street, nearly knocking me over as she arrived.

“Good to see you too, Cal.”

She frowned and pointed to the Dowager and Da. “Jaxter, talk to them. Make them listen.”

“To what?”

Callie stepped into the armory and spun the chair around. The Sentinel, it turned out, was Talian. A rag, stuffed deep in his mouth, hung down his chin. Scratches marred his cheeks and forehead.

“Look what they did to him,” Callie said.

“To be fair, Callie,” the Dowager said in her kind-but-firm voice, “when Talian was attacked, no one knew he was your cousin.”

“We had to lock him up for his own safety,” Da told me. “There was talk of drowning him in the swamp.”

Callie placed herself between Talian and the group. “
No one
is touching him.”

This was indeed a problem. We couldn't let Talian go. He'd report where we were to the Palatinate. But Grimjinxes weren't murderers and we couldn't let the villagers kill Talian.

“Let's just think,” I said. “There's got to be a way—”

“Have you considered,” Edilman said, yanking the rag from Talian's mouth, “
talking
to him?”

“I've been looking for you.”

Callie tipped a wineskin to Talian's lips to help his hoarse voice. We all sat in the Dowager's house, Talian still tied to his chair. Maloch had drawn the curtains, but kept watch for prying eyes. The people of Slagbog wanted blood. It would be hard to explain why we were having a private meeting with the Sentinel.

“Every mage in the Provinces is looking for us,” Da replied.

Talian nodded. “And how do you think you've evaded them for so long?”

The Dowager took a seat across from Talian. “Are you saying you had something to do with it?”

“After the insurrection, I became a Sentinel because I knew the Lordcourt would give them the job of finding you,” Talian said. “We've had dozens of reports on your whereabouts for the last six months. I altered those reports and made sure the Palatinate was always looking in the wrong place. And I was doing a good job keeping it quiet until
that fool
showed up at the Palatinate Palace, shooting his mouth off.”

That fool
came with a glare to the far corner where Uncle Garax was tied to his own chair. Apparently, when the village overpowered Talian, Beard and Bald had fled. Since then, Uncle Garax had been bound here in the Dowager's house. That thought alone made me incredibly happy.

The Dowager could see Da was skeptical. “Ona,” she said, “I think he's telling the truth.”

Talian looked relieved. “I didn't come here to turn you over to the Lordcourt. If you'd just surrendered yesterday, I'd have taken you someplace safe and—”

“But why would you help us?” I asked.

“Not all mages agree with what the Lordcourt has done,” Talian said. “All those terrible things the High Laird did—the taxes, the persecutions, the revoked freedoms—he did because Nalia and the Lordcourt advised him to do so. They made him believe the actions were necessary to prevent being overthrown. The High Laird was paranoid, so he agreed. The Lordcourt has been manipulating him for years. Nalia thought it would make it easier to get popular support for their takeover if the people hated him.”

“But just in case,” I said, “they made a monster army.”

Talian sighed. “I didn't know about their plans until it was too late. A small group of mages are working from within to set things right again.”

Volo ser voli
, I thought. Just like the mages who fought the Scions.

“Pockets of resistance are forming everywhere,” Talian continued. “They need our help.”

“He's right.” Edilman, who'd been leaning quietly against the door, moved next to Talian. “The monks have heard rumors about dissent among the mages.”

Da scoffed. “And rumors also say the monks work for the Palatinate. We can't trust rumors.”

“You mean you can't trust me,” Edilman said softly. He and Da stared at each other, dropping the temperature in the room to near freezing.

“You need to let me go.”

Talian's plea broke the tension. Maloch shook his head. “We let him go and two minutes later, the Sentinels will show up with an entire zoo of monsters and turn Slagbog to dust.”

“That's what will happen if I
don't
return,” Talian countered. “I can go back and say that you were here but escaped before I arrived. I'll tell them you're trying to get back to Vengekeep. They won't be interested in Slagbog and you can stay here to get organized.”

“Organized?” Da asked. “For what?”

I thought about what Aubrin had said, about people still being loyal to the House of Soranna. The Palatinate needed Aubrin for her prophecies. But they needed the Dowager to prevent . . .

“A rebellion,” I said. “Everyone here already hates the Palatinate. If we could reach out to those others that Talian is talking about . . .”

No one argued. But they didn't jump to agree either. I turned to the Dowager, who had moved into the corner, refusing to meet my eyes.

Finally, Da said, “Well . . . we started with a plan to break into Umbramore. How much more planning could a full-scale rebellion be?”

Edilman untied the mage's hands. “Can you help us?”

“How?”

“Information. Tell us what the Lordcourt is planning. Where are they vulnerable?”

Talian stood and nodded. Da returned the mage's spellsphere. “I'll do what I can,” Talian said. “Something's happening soon that might be an opportunity. I'll be in touch.”

He opened a quickjump ring and disappeared. We waited. There was a chance we were wrong and Talian was rounding up an army of Sentinels and monsters to level Slagbog. When ten minutes passed and we weren't dying, Da clapped his hands.

“All right, everyone, from this moment on, we're the resistance. That's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it? And our first official job is the hardest we'll probably ever have to do.”

“What's that, Da?” I asked.

Da pulled open the curtain and pointed out the window to where the mayoress was crossing the town square.

“Telling Oberax.”

27

The Dowager's Dilemma

“A secret shared enslaves the teller.”

—The Lymmaris Creed

W
hen Da first proposed the idea of creating a haven for thieves in Slagbog, Oberax had agreed only because she wanted the village to survive. And while she had no love for the Palatinate, she didn't necessarily want to make them angry either. When Da, the Dowager, and Edilman went to tell her their ideas about turning Slagbog into the headquarters for the revolution, her screams could be heard from either end of the village.

After several hours of discussion, Oberax agreed on the condition that everyone in Slagbog had to sign on. If even
one
person disagreed, our rebellion would have to find another home. So we had to win over the entire village.

Da came home that night, exhausted but optimistic. “Oberax is going to call a town meeting tomorrow. We'll present our idea and see what happens.”

“Do you think everyone will listen?” Aubrin asked.

“Can't say for sure,” Da said. “Maybe. I wish we had something that would convince them we can succeed.”

I suddenly remembered my discovery at the Abbey and reached into my pocket. “How about this?” I produced the Vanguard and quickly explained to him what it was. “This is how the Scions were beaten. Everyone
has
to rally if they know we've got the ultimate weapon.”

Da's eyes nearly burst from his skull. “You haven't told anyone you've got that, have you?”

“Just Aubrin.”

Da touched his temple. “Keep it that way. I admitted to the village that we were Grimjinxes. Thankfully, we have a very big family tree with many branches. I didn't say we're the ones on the wanted posters. Or that we have the Dowager with us.”

“But you said they thought we were heroes,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes, but as Ranjax Grimjinx always said, ‘The best truth hides the worst facts.' No need to risk our status as heroes by revealing that the two most wanted people in all the Provinces are here. Add the Vanguard to that and we might as well paint targets on our backs. No, we'll find another way to convince the others.”

Aubrin and I touched our temples in agreement.

Surprisingly, everyone came to the town meeting. In the past, these meetings had been poorly attended. But Talian's visit had sent a scare throughout the village. They came to the meeting expecting to be told they were safe.

Boy, did they get a shock.

Gandrick's tavern could safely hold about half the residents. Today, though, it was packed with three-quarters of the village, with the rest crowding around the door and windows. Da stood behind a table against the tavern's north wall, facing everyone. The Dowager stood near the door with Maloch and Callie. I sat atop the bar with Aubrin, while Edilman leaned on a chair nearby.

“I know that when I brought you all here,” Da said, “I promised our sole purpose was to break our families out of Umbramore. But I believe we have a chance to change things permanently so that we don't have to spend the rest of our lives hiding.”

“What became of the Sentinel?” Sarquin Scalander asked.

“He's been dealt with,” Da said gravely. We wanted people to think we'd buried Talian in the swamp. We'd have a
different
rebellion on our hands if people knew we'd let him go.

“There are just over fifty people here,” Gandrick said. “The Palatinate has two hundred mages with an arsenal of spells and thousands of magical beasts at their command. We don't stand a chance.”

“Not if we stand alone, no,” I blurted out. “But we aren't alone.”

Suddenly, all eyes were on me. I swallowed hard and lifted my chin. “The assassin-monks, the most formidable warriors this side of Rexin, are our allies. They've seen people who think like us all over the Provinces. We only have to reach out to them.”

Da and I went back and forth, offering arguments for why we should revolt. One by one, people started nodding in agreement. It wasn't long before we'd won over most of the room.

Oberax alone remained unconvinced. Her dark eyes bored into Da, unmoving. It occurred to me that her deal with Da was designed to fail. Only
one
person had to be against the idea of starting a rebellion. Even if we convinced everyone else, Oberax would always be against it.

Soon, the discussion was between Da and Oberax, as they argued the reasons for and against rebelling. It was clear she wasn't going to budge. And the more she argued, the more people seemed to sway to her side. Soon, others were arguing against Da too. We were losing allies.

“This isn't getting us anywhere,” I muttered to Edilman. “We can't just have everybody shouting. We need to be organized.”

“No,” Edilman said quietly. “We need a
leader
.”

He nodded across the room. The Dowager watched the debate with a look of distaste.
People are loyal to the House of Soranna.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. They probably hoped the High Laird would come back and drive out the Palatinate. But that wasn't going to happen. The High Laird was gone.

Yet the House of Soranna remained. Problem was: no one knew.

As the yelling reached fever pitch, the Dowager pushed her way through the crowded doorway and into the street.

“Excuse me,” I said to Edilman, then followed the Dowager out.

I caught up with her as she approached her house.

“No, Jaxter.”

She didn't even turn to look at me.

“You don't know what I'm going to say,” I told her.

“You want me to rally everyone.”

“Okay, so you do know,” I admitted. “You saw how naff-nut it is in there. They need someone to sort it all out. Your father trained
you
to be High Laird. Like it or not, the Provinces are yours to rule.”

“Well, I
don't
like it!” Her words were cold. Slowly, she faced me. Her eyes were hard and focused, more so than I'd ever seen. “Jaxter, I told you that I refused to become High Laird because I wanted to devote my life to research. That was only partly true. I also didn't want to be the head of a government I hated. My family has ruled the Provinces for five hundred years. I don't think one family should have that much power over the people.”

I never knew this. I knew that, like me, she'd gone against her family's expectations. It was something we shared. I never imagined that she cared about the people of the Provinces so much that she couldn't
bear
to be their ruler.

“Then don't let it be about power,” I said, taking her hand. “Let this be about the people.”

The Dowager's face fell as she considered. “I'm so old, Jaxter. I'm weak.”

“You? Weak?” I said, scoffing. “You, who fought off a horde of vessapedes with a bottle of ashwine and a stick?”

She laughed, remembering our time in the vessapede warrens all those months ago. Drawing her shawl tight, she straightened her back and allowed a calm austerity to wash over her face. I hadn't seen that—her head-of-state face—in a long, long time.

“How's this?” she asked.

“Scowl a little,” I said. “You want them to take you seriously.”

We walked back to the tavern, where they were no closer to agreement than when we'd left. When they caught a glimpse of the Dowager's stony face, people stepped aside. She moved to the table with Oberax and Da. Everyone fell quiet.

“There will be no more discussion,” the Dowager said flatly. “You're wasting time when there's work to be done.”

“What work?” Sarquin asked.

“The annihilation of the Palatinate,” the Dowager answered.

Oberax folded her arms. “You seem to think that's easy.”

“Easy?” the Dowager said. “Not at all. Make no mistake. What we're proposing is a threat to every man, woman, and child in this village. But it's insignificant compared to the threat that faces every single person living in the Five Provinces. I have no intention of doing anything ‘easy.' I intend to strike back and retake what is ours.”

The Dowager reached up and pulled the wig from her head. There were gasps as people immediately recognized her. “Protecting the Provinces has always fallen to the House of Soranna,” she said, tossing the wig aside. “As heir to that noble lineage, I tell you now that we can and will prevail.”

She pointed to the door. “Just outside, there's a road that leads from Slagbog. Anyone who wants the days that follow to be easy, leave now. I have no patience or time for you. But anyone who wants their life back, anyone who wants the freedom that is rightly theirs restored, stand with me now.”

No one moved. No one made a sound.

“You see Slagbog as small and unimportant. That's what the Palatinate sees. People they can starve. People they can divide. People they can
break
. Let me tell you what I see. In Slagbog, I see the first link in a chain. A chain that will grow as we reach out. A chain that gets stronger when we refuse to be alone. We find friends, we find allies. . . .”

She reached over and took Edilman's hand. The abbot bowed respectfully and placed his free hand on his heart, pledging fidelity.

The Dowager continued, louder than before. “We find anyone who feels the same oppression we feel. Everyone we've ever known becomes another link that brings us closer to victory. And the chain we form will grow stronger until we're a flail we can use to drive the Palatinate out!”

I nearly leaped out of my trousers as cheers shook the tavern. Someone at the back stood. Then someone else. The room filled with the sound of chairs being shoved aside as people rose to stand with the Dowager.

Everyone watched Oberax. The par-Goblin scowled, then hoisted herself up. At first, it looked like she might storm out. Instead, she bowed to the Dowager and clenched her fists, a par-Goblin sign of respect.

No one was left seated.

The Dowager slowly looked around the room, making eye contact with every person. “Time is short. Soon, Xerrus will return for another tribute. I say we make this tribute a message the Palatinate will never forget.”

Another cheer sounded from all assembled, louder and more raucous than before. Edilman leaned over to me.

“Congratulations,” he whispered. “It'll look mighty impressive in the Grimjinx family album when it says ‘Jaxter Grimjinx, architect of the rebellion.'”

The people of Slagbog slowly filed from the tavern and returned to their homes. On her way out, Sarquin Scalander caught my eye and bowed her head. Soon, it was just Da, Edilman, the Dowager, and me.

“Well,” Da said, “we've got our work cut out.”

“How long before the next tribute is due?” Edilman asked.

“Two weeks,” Da said. “Can't wait to see the look on old Xerrus's face.” He took a deep breath, then held out his hand to the abbot. “Your monks . . . can they train people to fight?”

Edilman shook Da's hand vigorously. “Hand to hand, swords, spears . . . We can teach the people of Slagbog to turn anything into a weapon.”

Da and Edilman started outlining plans for the days to come. But the Dowager got that distant look in her eye, the one she got when she was calculating.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I fear it won't be enough,” the Dowager said softly. “The Palatinate is very powerful. Even with the monks' help, it will take a lot more than this village to mount a meaningful insurrection. What I know about waging war will only get us so far. We need an army.”

She was right, of course. But I'd been thinking about what the Dowager had just told everyone. That we'd need every resource to succeed. Every contact, every acquaintance, every friend. Well, we had friends. Lots of friends. And it was time we paid them a call.

“You provide the leadership,” I said to her, “and I'll provide the army.”