The Vengekeep Prophecies (4 page)

Da waved. When the scholars didn't respond, Ma, Nanni, and Aubrin joined me and Da. Ma kissed us both.

“Summons?” Da asked quietly.

“Imagine my shock,” Ma said, sounding anything but shocked.

“I'll try.”

Aubrin and I shared a squint. We knew our parents. What were they up to?

Castellan Jorn entered next, hunched over, cane in hand, in the same splendid azure and black robes of a provincial magistrate that he'd worn last night. It looked like he'd slept in them. Which, of course, he had, seeing as I'd torched his house and everything he owned. They were probably all the clothes he had in the world right now. My ears burning, I gazed at the floor.

Jorn appeared exhausted. In gaol, I'd heard the guards talking. Because of the Festival, there were no vacancies at the inns. Jorn had been forced to spend the night in the guest room of the widow Bellatin, who most likely kept the Castellan up all night with stories about her long-dead husband. Our night in gaol was looking better and better.

If Jorn could have killed us with a look, the one on his face would have done the job twenty times over. He peeled his gaze away from us long enough to consult with the scholars in a raspy whisper. He was clearly angry, and from their body language, the scholars were doing their best to convince him of something.

Finally, Jorn snorted, turned, and hobbled over to us, his face a mask of contempt.

“I was nearly rid of you,” he snarled. “I had the order of exile drafted and ready to sign. So close …”

He pivoted on one foot to face the room's centerpiece—indeed, the very reason for the room's existence. A large tapestry, as tall as Ma and three times as wide, woven with threads of varying brown shades, hung from a shiny copper frame, suspended from the ceiling by thick cables. Jorn regarded the tapestry for a moment, then spoke over his shoulder to Da and me.

“It's a shame you missed the Unveiling last night. I'm sure you'll agree the Twins had a very interesting message for us this year.”

He motioned with his cane to the tapestry. I looked to where he was pointing, but Ma and Da, doing their best to appear deeply interested in what the Castellan had to say, never took their eyes off the portly man.

Everyone in Vengekeep knew the story of the Twins. Powerful seers who lived almost five hundred years ago, the Twins had visions of Vengekeep's future that they wove into a series of tapestries. They wove a tapestry a day on enchanted looms, each tapestry representing a forthcoming year. And because the Palatinate believed it was dangerous to know the future too far in advance, the tapestries were sealed in glass tubes, marked with the corresponding year, and locked away in the catacombs beneath the town-state hall.

Every new year, the town-state threw a massive festival in honor of the Twins. At the end of the weeklong celebration, the Castellan and our town-state mage would unlock that year's tapestry, unveil it to the city, and then hang it in the Viewing Room for all to see. Scholars would spend hours interpreting it and then prescribe a course of action to the Castellan.

When I was eight, the tapestry warned of a drought, allowing the town-state council to create water reservoirs. In the nearly five hundred years that Vengekeep had been relying on the tapestries for guidance, they'd often predicted as much good as they did bad and most of the bad they predicted was avoided. And none of it was ever terribly bad.

Until now.

I studied this year's tapestry. It was a familiar mix of pictograms and sparsely worded passages. And while I was no scholar, even I could tell that Vengekeep's future looked bleak. Crudely rendered dead animals suggested some sort of livestock plague. Stick figure people were covered in flames. Squiggles that looked suspiciously like monstrous vessapedes burst from the fountain near Hogar Square. Most disturbing, a flock of winged skeletal creatures dominated most of the tapestry. They looked like nothing I'd ever seen: massive, clawed, and fanged. In the pictogram, they seemed to be tearing the town clock tower to shreds. Other disasters—heavy rains, earthquakes—were mentioned in brief sentences around the ornately decorated borders. In the center of it all sat four additional stick figures, standing at all points of a four-pointed star.

“What do you think of that?” Jorn demanded, tapping the tapestry with his cane.

“I think we were safer back in gaol,” I said, wide-eyed. I thought I heard Nanni snicker.

Ma stared intently at the weaving, taking it all in. “What could it mean, Castellan?”

Jorn approached the tapestry and pointed to the words directly underneath the four stick people near the star that read, “The star-marked family alone shall be the salvation of Vengekeep.”

As the words sank in, a chill tickled my toes. I stared so hard at the passage that I'd missed Jorn sidling up beside me. He yanked at my vest and shirt, exposing my right shoulder. There, small and red, was a four-point star—the Grimjinx family birthmark I shared with Da, Nanni, and Aubrin. Everyone in town knew about it.

One of the scholars—a woman with salt-and-pepper hair—stepped forward. “The four of us are in agreement. The tapestry portends a disastrous year for our town-state. A year where the Twins indicate
your
presence is vital to Vengekeep's survival.”

“I wanted to be rid of you once and for all,” Jorn said, his face so near I could smell scorchcake on his breath, “but I'm forced to allow you to stay.”

“Stay?” Da asked, as though it was the most ludicrous suggestion ever. “I was just warming to the idea of exile. A nice traveling holiday. A chance to see the waterfalls at Azagan Cliffs …”

“And I hear the mesas at Splitscar Gorge are breathtaking,” Ma added.

“I've always wanted to raft down the River Karre,” Nanni joined in.

“Staying would be dangerous,” Da said, stroking his chin. “After all, I believe there are some pending charges.”

Jorn's face had grown so bloated and red with anger, I really thought he might explode. The scholars cleared their throats, which pulled him from his rage-induced stupor.

“All charges are summarily dismissed,” Jorn croaked.

“Yes, that sounds very nice,” Ma said, “but I think we could do with a bit of clemency as well.”

“And immunity,” Nanni insisted, leveling a glare at Jorn. “We don't want to incriminate ourselves.”

Jorn's jaw dropped, ready to give us an earful, when the scholars again cleared their throats. Jorn's outburst died on his lips and all he said was, “Done.”

Da clapped his hands together. “Excellent. We'll look forward to the paperwork spelling all that out delivered to our house sometime this week. Now I wonder, Castellan, as we Grimjinxes are responsible for saving Vengekeep, might we have just a moment alone to study the tapestry ourselves? So we can … contemplate how that saving might happen.”

Jorn sniffed, and a grudging smile parted his lips. “Please. Take all the time you need.”

He turned with the scholars, clip-clopped across the floor, and left us alone. For a moment. The door then opened and a stateguard brandishing a polearm entered to watch over us. We stood with our backs to him, studying the tapestry thoughtfully.

“By the Seven! Would you look at that?” Ma said, shaking her head in something akin to awe. “Who would have thought? The Grimjinxes, saviors of Vengekeep.”

I gave a curt nod. “Absolutely bangers.” Then I lowered my voice. “Some of your best work, Ma.”

Ma and Da continued looking straight ahead, pretending to observe the tapestry's intricate detail, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Ma's jaw drop in mock surprise. She, too, spoke quietly. “Why, Jaxter Grimjinx, whatever do you mean?”

I guffawed. “You should leave the outright lying to Da because you're not very good at it. I'd know your forgeries anywhere. I can see where anyone else would be fooled. But
you
wove that tapestry.”

We all huddled together tightly. Da pointed, as if to show me something I hadn't noticed. I played along for the guard's benefit, leaning in to observe, as we continued to speak in hushed tones.

“So what was your first clue?” he asked.

“Neither of you was the least bit worried when we were arrested for what should have been an easy prosecution. Like you knew they wouldn't be able to touch you.”

I glanced at them, and it's a good thing our backs were to the guard because they each wore a self-satisfied smirk. Ma pointed to the star in the center. “I made this right before Nanni came to live with us. That's why there are only four people. An insurance policy your Da and I cooked up just over a year ago.”

“Insurance policy?” I asked.

Da nodded. “This is the year, Jaxter. The Big Job.”

The Big Job. Ever since I was little, Ma and Da had been planning the most ambitious heist of their joint careers. They talked about it all the time, but I didn't think they'd ever get to it in my lifetime. But now they were going ahead with it: a raid on Ullin Lek's vaults.

Ullin Lek was the wealthiest man in Vengekeep, and possibly the entire Province. To my parents, he represented the highest prize imaginable. The vaults beneath his house were legendary, said to be loaded with barrels filled with silvernibs, precious gems of immeasurable value, and rare works of art that rivaled the High Laird's own collection. They'd spent years following Lek, learning everything they could that would help them with the break-in. Now it seemed they were ready.

“There's no telling what we'll face once we get into the vaults,” Ma said.

Da nodded. “Lek can afford much more powerful magical protections than simple yellstop charms. Our chance of getting caught is a mite higher than usual.”

“So we needed a contingency plan, something that would keep the Castellan from sending us to prison … or worse … if we fail.”

I got the idea. “So you wove a fake tapestry, predicting doom and gloom for Vengekeep, and swapped it out for the real one. And if you get caught, they can't touch the ‘saviors of Vengekeep.'” I could hardly contain a smile. “Brilliant!”

Ma had folded her arms across her chest to keep from laughing. “Can't take all the credit. It was your da who dreamed up the Fire Men. Flying creatures were mine, though. Wanted to keep it plenty scary.” She took a step back, giving the tapestry an admiring look. “You know, it didn't net us a single copperbit, but I'd have to say that this was our finest con ever.”

Later, on our way out, we all joined arms and bowed respectfully to the Castellan and the scholars.

“Please know,” Ma said, as seriously as she could muster, “that Vengekeep can rely on the Grimjinxes to stare down any disasters that may befall the city in the coming year.”

The five of us made it only ten steps from the front door of the hall before we couldn't hold it in anymore. We laughed all the way home.

“There is no punishment harsh enough for the crime of stupidity.”

—
Baloras Grimjinx, architect of the First Aviard Nestvault Pillage

T
o say that the people of Vengekeep immediately embraced the idea that my family was destined to save them from unimaginable catastrophes would be like saying the Castellan didn't almost swallow his tongue when he signed the order granting us immunity from prosecution.

In other words, it would be a complete lie.

Everyone in the family was used to drawing suspicious stares wherever we went in town. Now, those stares seemed even more incredulous … but decidedly less hostile. No one—from Tresdin Nahr, the town-state treasurer, to Chodrin Benrick, the cobbler's snooty son—wanted to believe the Grimjinx clan was destined to save Vengekeep.

We
could hardly believe how well the con had worked. We had a year.
A whole year
to plunder without fear of charges, search warrants, or grumpy magistrates. If we planned it right, the whole family could retire by the next Festival.

Retiring at age twelve. Let's see the cobbler's son try that.

As was tradition, Apprentice Day came to Vengekeep exactly two weeks after the Unveiling. Merchants and business owners set up tables around the edge of Cloudburn Park in the north of town. Anyone who'd turned twelve since the last Apprentice Day was required to go from table to table and apply for an apprenticeship at any number of mind-numbing jobs. Blacksmith. Carpenter. Seamstress. Sure, they were fine for the people doing the jobs, but when you come from a long line of thieves—where excitement is mandatory—it could lead to death by boredom.