The Vengekeep Prophecies (11 page)

We spent a solid hour poring through the books. I started a pile on the small round table in the room's center for books that had potential. I had no idea how many I could realistically take with me. Talian would return from the Trials soon. With so many books filling the shelves, too many gaps would be conspicuous.

When we were too exhausted to open another book, we gathered five of the books I deemed most valuable and made our way downstairs again.

We slipped out of the house and into the streets. At the next crossroads, Callie turned left to head home and I turned right.

“See,” she said, before leaving, “if you're not careful, Jaxter Grimjinx, you just might end up a hero after all.” Callie gave me a wink and took off down the dark street.

Back at home, I went upstairs to my room, kicked off my boots, and sank into bed. I was just about to fall asleep when I finally saw the flaw in my plan. The information in the
Formulary
was good at negating low-level magic. The formulas were useless against anything more powerful. And fateskein was the most potent stuff I'd ever seen. The chances of finding an answer were slim.

I looked out the window. Across the alley, I could see the ruined buildings up and down our street. I knew the prophecies wouldn't stop until Vengekeep was destroyed. I closed my eyes and remembered what my cousin Kellis Grimjinx always said:
From slim chances come fat rewards.
For all our sakes, I hoped he was right.

Whenever we weren't researching fateskein, I was teaching Callie how to be a thief. I read her stories from the Grimjinx family album about my ancestors' greatest heists. She took to her lessons immediately and, in no time, became better at picking locks than me.

I had to give her to Aubrin, who started teaching Callie sleight of hand. The pair would sit in the park while I rummaged through Lotha's books. Aubrin would hold up a blue stone. Callie had to pass her hand over Aubrin's and replace the blue stone with a red one without Aubrin noticing. It didn't come to her as naturally as picking locks, but it wasn't long before Callie could make the swap swiftly enough so that Aubrin didn't feel a thing.

But each time she succeeded, Callie would hold out the blue stone triumphantly and shout, “Ta-da!”

“Um, Cal,” I said, as Aubrin shook her head, “just so you know … Real thieves? Don't say ‘ta-da!'”

The stress of trying to think like saviors was taking its toll on the family. Late one afternoon, as Aubrin and I helped Nanni make supper, Da trudged in through the front door, exhausted from his day at the shop. He sank into his chair at the kitchen table.

“You know,” he said, “I miss the old days. Back when people avoided the phydollotry shop. Or I could at least scare away anyone who was curious. Now that we're saviors,
everyone's
stopping by. ‘How's the shop today, Ona?' ‘Can I make an appointment, Ona?' If this keeps up, I'll have to figure out what phydollotry is. And that means I'll have to start …
working
! Who wants that?”

Aubrin passed him a glass of ashwine as he put his feet up. He'd just asked us all to pitch in ideas as to what phydollotry might be when Ma burst through the back door.

“I've got it!” Ma cried, going straight to Da.

We were all a bit surprised. Ma hadn't been the same since the firestorm. She'd become listless, hardly talking anymore, taking naps at the oddest times during the day and staying up all night, staring out the window. She mumbled constantly that “her” tapestry was causing this. For the first time in several days, she seemed back to her normal self.

“What's that, dear?” Da asked.

Ma turned to the rest of us. “The solution to our little prophecy problem. It's so simple. Jorn's only concern is the safety of everyone in Vengekeep. So let's get everyone out of Vengekeep!”

We looked around at one another, eyebrows scrunched.

“Come again?” Nanni asked.

But Da was catching on. “An evacuation. Of course. Sounds like a perfect idea. We get everyone to pack up their essentials and we start a massive caravan to … I don't know where. Surely some town-state will take in a few refugees.”

The more we talked, the more the idea blossomed. Ma started writing down thoughts on how to approach Jorn. He wouldn't like the idea—he'd probably see it as a way for us to empty out the town so the Grimjinxes could have free pick of everyone's belongings … which actually wasn't a naff-nut idea. But if we used reason, he would probably come around. If he was going to buy it, we'd need a very specific plan, so we went about plotting the exodus of Vengekeep.

Just then, we heard pounding at our front door. I opened it to find Maloch, in his training armor, flanked by two full-fledged members of the stateguard.

“BYORDEROFTHECASTELLANTHEGRIMJINXFAMILYWILLCOME—”

“Why are you shouting?” I asked, grimacing and poking my ear with my finger. “We're right here in front of you.”

“BYORDEROFTHECASTELLAN—”

“And could you slow down?” I said. “Really, Maloch, it's like you've got marbles in your mouth.”

“BYORDEROF—”

Ma rolled her eyes. “Oh, please don't make him go through it again, Jaxter. I think we're supposed to go with him to meet the Castellan.”

Maloch scowled at me, did an about-face with the stateguards, and led the whole family down the street. Moments later, we approached the city gate. I saw several guards gathered atop the main watchtower, looking down the other side. We followed Maloch up a staircase to the battlements. From the defensive walls, I looked out into the valley and up at the hilltops that surrounded Vengekeep.

“By the Seven!” I breathed. “Look!”

Rows and rows of armored troops formed a living wall along the ridge of the valley in the distance. Behind the barricade of soldiers stood an array of catapults, trebuchets, and battering rams. As I turned around in place, I saw that this wall of force had completely surrounded the town-state.

“Are we under attack?” Da asked. We all traded glances.
That
wasn't in the tapestry.

Maloch sniffed. “Hardly. They were sent by the High Laird.”

I squinted into the setting sun. Sure enough, the standards the troops flew bore the purple and black colors of the Provincial Guard, the High Laird's personal army.

“There you are!”

Castellan Jorn, brow sweaty and crimson, marched over to meet us. Before we could speak, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the main watchtower. Looking over the edge of the wall, I saw four men atop mangs. Three were soldiers. The fourth was dressed in purple, flowing robes that identified him as a member of the High Laird's cabinet. He wore a feathered hat, shaggy beard, and pointed-toe boots.

“They're here, Chancellor Karadin!” Jorn declared to the herald. “This is the Grimjinx boy … Jazza.”

“Jaxter,” I corrected.

Jorn scowled. “Whatever. This is the family I told you about. The family in the tapestry.”

The Chancellor seemed unimpressed. “Yes, I can see that,” he called up. “It changes nothing.”

“Castellan,” Ma whispered, “what's going on?” The Chancellor acted as the voice of the High Laird, enforcing his will throughout the Provinces. His arrival—and that of what looked to be the entire Provincial Guard—couldn't be good.

Jorn pointed down to the Chancellor. “Go ahead. Tell them what you were just telling me.”

The Chancellor sighed a belabored sigh, removed a parchment from a leather tube, and made a great show of reading it. “‘By decree of the High Laird, the town-state of Vengekeep is henceforth forbidden from making contact with the outside world until such time as the curse that has befallen—'”

“Curse?” Nanni called down to the Chancellor. “What are you talking about, Fancy Robes?”

The Chancellor glared. “News of Vengekeep's recent and forthcoming woes has reached the High Laird. He has consulted with the Lordcourt at the Palatinate, and the High Laird has come to the conclusion that the disasters afflicting Vengekeep are the result of a powerful curse. In order to protect the rest of the Five Provinces from becoming afflicted as well, it has been ordered that everyone who lives in Vengekeep shall be confined there until the effects of the curse as outlined in the prophecies have run their course.”

The Palatinate had supreme control over all mages, but they answered to the High Laird. They acted as counsel in all things magical. Somehow, they'd come to believe Vengekeep was cursed.

Curses, like fateskein, were highly dangerous things. Very rare, but everyone in the Five Provinces took them seriously. Cursed people were often confined to their homes. Curses were like diseases: easily spread. So it was understandable that precautions were taken.

Only Vengekeep
wasn't
cursed. And quarantining an entire town-state had never been done before. Certainly not with as much firepower as the High Laird had sent to enforce the quarantine. But there was no way to convince anyone that there was no curse. The Palatinate wouldn't risk sending someone to investigate, because the investigator could become cursed as well.

“This is mad,” Ma spat to no one in particular.

But her words reached the Chancellor's ears and he squared his shoulders. “This is the will of the High Laird. He seeks only to protect his Provinces.”

“As well he should,” Jorn said, attempting charm to appease the High Laird's spokesman. “But as I explained, this family has been singled out as the … protectors”—he could barely say the word—“of Vengekeep.” He turned to me and hissed. “Show him the birthmark.”

“He'll never see it from all the way down—”

“Show him the birthmark!”

I glanced at Ma, who rolled her eyes. I pulled my tunic away from my shoulder and bent over so the Chancellor could examine me.

Jorn poked the four-pointed star until it became even redder. “Surely there is no evidence that a curse can be countermanded by the existence of a savior? Which clearly indicates that it's not a curse.”

Jorn had abandoned the charm and was spitting words through his clenched yellow teeth. Still, the Chancellor seemed unmoved by Jorn
or
my birthmark
or
the Grimjinxes' alleged role as Vengekeep's redeemers.

“Instruct your people that they are not to leave this valley. The Provincial Guard has orders to kill on sight if anyone tries to escape. That is all.”

Before Jorn could protest further, the Chancellor turned his mang, and he and his escort of soldiers made their way up the rocky road toward the army on the hilltop. Jorn's shoulders deflated and I actually felt sorry for him. It wasn't going to be easy relaying the Laird's decree to the populace of Vengekeep. How do you tell a people already under one threat that their own sovereign would rather see them die than give them a chance at survival?

Jorn dismissed us with a wave of his hands, and we took the stairs back down into the streets.

“So much for the evacuation,” Ma mumbled. The sadness returned to her eyes, and she didn't say another word all the way home.

That night was quiet in our house. Ma didn't touch her dinner. She sat in the living room, staring into the empty fireplace. Da did his best to make her happy, cracking jokes and reminding her we had several strong plans in place to beat most of the prophecies. But after a few hours, Ma rose silently, went upstairs, and closed the bedroom door behind her.

I grabbed my satchel filled with Lotha's books and made for Cloudburn Park. Squinting as the light from both moons shone down, I dove into the books. I read and read until my eyes burned, more determined than ever to find an answer.

I had more than Vengekeep to save.

“If it's right for the con, it's right for you.”

—
Ancient par-Goblin proverb

M
a got worse in the following weeks. Her face grew thin, her eyes sunken. She spent most days in bed, barely able to lift her head. Nanni and I took over running the household, seeing that everything stayed clean and well stocked. Da closed the phydollotry shop until further notice and put all his energy into thinking up ways to fend off the prophecies.