The Crimson League (The Herezoth Trilogy) (29 page)

He hacked harder than usual at what he called mindstone
.

My find will be useless, because of her damned incompetence. Zalski needs that spell and the Lifestone, though I don’t doubt he’ll have the latter, he’ll have unearthed it. The book, that’s the difficulty. If Malzin and her hounds haven’t tracked it by now, she won’t be glad to see me.

Through her split vision Kora saw Kansten, who had watch, creep around Wheatfield’s barn. The sorceress thought, “I should go back. How do I go back?” As if on cue, the cavern dissolved around her to leave her back in Fontferry, kneeling beneath the clear night sky. Kansten stopped short, gaping at the scene, and Kora explained, “I used the necklace.”

“Really? Who did you…?”

“Alten.”

Kansten’s eyes narrowed. She did not approve the choice, but displayed unusual tact in not saying so. If she could have seen what Kora just saw….

“He’s in the mountains, Lanokas. He’s been looking for mindstone, and he found it.”

“Mindstone?” said Kansten. To Kora’s relief—she too had no idea what the substance did—Lanokas told them:

“Mindstone’s a mineral deposit. An extremely rare one. If you hold a chunk of it, you can read the memories of anyone you touch.”

Kora said, “That can’t be right. Why would Zalski need that? He has Malzin.”

“Malzin only reads thoughts, the mind’s very surface. Mindstone exposes the subconscious. It lets you delve into memories, like I said. Malzin’s victims control what she sees, but mindstone, mindstone lets you explore at will. It does have its limitations: any movement on the victim’s part thrusts the invader out. That includes the rising of the chest when you breathe.”

Kora grabbed Kansten’s shoulders. “That’s it! That’s it, there must be a spell to counteract that restriction, a spell in the
Librette,
that’s why he wants it. Though why he couldn’t use
Estatua
….”

Lanokas shut his eyes in frustration. “Zalski isn’t after a specific spell.”

“He is! Alten said as much! What was it?
Zalski needs that spell and the Lifestone.
What’s the Lifestone?”

“Never heard of it. But I can guess Zalski finding it would be nothing good for us.”

Kora said, “We have to get back to Yangerton. This morning. I’ll transport us and the animals to the woods outside the city.”

Kansten said, “Why don’t you transport us to Alten? Right now? There’s no point letting Zalski get his paws on some mindstone, even if he doesn’t have the spell he wants.”

“Transporting doesn’t work that way. He could be anywhere in the mountains, I can’t just move myself to where he is. I have to know the location.”

Lanokas said, “You’ve seen the location, right? In a way you have. Anyway, it’s worth a shot.” He took Kora’s hand, and Kansten grabbed her other. Kora sighed, focused her mind on the spot where she had seen Alten, and spoke the incantation. Nothing happened. She tried a few more times, then tore herself from her friends.

“I told you it wouldn’t work. I’m pretty sure the spell’s valid for places I can see or I’ve physically been to, that’s it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have spent a week traveling to the Hall.”

Lanokas said, “To be fair, the Hall has enchantments against that spell.”

“It’s enchanted in some way,” Kora agreed. She asked, “Did you know Alten can’t stand Malzin?” Kansten’s eyes gleamed with interest. Lanokas took a moment to let Kora’s question sink in. “He hates her. He’ll be rejoining Zalski, now he’s got mindstone.”

Kansten offered, “At least Zalski doesn’t have the
Librette
.”

Lanokas said, “He’ll realize soon enough we must have it. I don’t know why Laskenay doesn’t destroy the thing.”

“We tried,” said Kora. “The Hall’s not the only thing protected by enchantments.”

“How long before the sun’s up, do you think?” asked Kansten. Lanokas gazed upward.

“An hour. We should probably move the horses. It’ll save time later. I doubt any of us can get more sleep, so we might as well do something useful.”

“Shouldn’t one of us stay?” Kora asked. “Keep watch?”

“There’s no one around here,” said Lanokas.

They turned back to the barn, and Kansten said, “Why would Zalski send his general to find mindstone? You’d think he could send a peon.”

Lanokas said, “Zalski’d never trust a peon to keep silent. No, he wouldn’t trust anyone but Alten for this. Alten, now…. The best way to describe Alten Grombach is to say he looks out for himself. He had no vendetta against my father, but he saw Zalski’s power. He bet on the traitor and secured his place in the new regime. If I know Alten at all—and he was no stranger around the Palace—he grudges this search Zalski set him.”

“Oh, he does,” said Kora. “That was obvious.”

“He grudges it at the same time he knows it’s a mark of Zalski’s faith, and as Zalski could squash him in an instant…. Alten would turn on a sorcerer as quickly as he turned on my father, if he had enough to gain. And don’t think Zalski can’t see through him. As long as the regime’s stable, Alten will be as loyal as they come. That’s his saving grace. That’s how they coexist.”

             
Lanokas fell silent as they entered the barn. Careful not to wake the boys, they arranged themselves around one of the horses, and Kora transported them all to an open space in an otherwise wooded area, the forest between Yangerton and the capital. The animal whinnied in protest, and dawn’s firsts silver rays dazzled Kora’s eyes. Lanokas asked, “Is this the last clearing?”

“The closest one to Yangerton,” Kora answered, somewhat winded. She had never traveled such a distance by magic, and sensed this was close to the extreme of what she could manage. Lanokas led the horse to the nearest tree and secured its reins in a branch. Kansten told the others:

“I’ll go ahead. The chiefs will want to know what we’ve been up to.”

She started off while Kora returned to Wheatfield, where she transported the rest of the horses two at a time to Lanokas, who secured them as he had the first. By the time they finished day had broken, and after Kora rested a moment, the two Leaguesmen returned to the loft to rouse the teenagers.

“Awesome,” said Bidd, when Lanokas explained the morning’s plans. He jumped down to the first level. Hal looked just as enthusiastic, though he used the ladder. Hayden, drowsier than anything else, said nothing; he stumbled down last, and Kora moved the party to the clearing in two groups.

Twenty minutes later, they snuck into Yangerton’s outskirts. The morning was overcast but dry, rather balmy. All that magic had exhausted Kora. Her very soul ached, more so than her body, but she endured another half hour of drifting among townspeople and avoiding the guards who seemed to be everywhere that day. Before long she reached the building, identical to so many others, where the rest of the League was waiting—or should be.

Kora tramped up the staircase with her heart in her throat. Who would greet the new arrivals? Whom might Bidd and Hayden never meet? Lanokas would not voice such speculation, but the line of his mouth was thin as he rapped on the door.

No one came to let them in. He rapped a second time, hard and brisk, his signature knock, and this time the door opened. Bendelof flew out and threw her arms around the sorceress. “You made it!”

Neslan sat in the corner, listening as Kansten wrapped up her account of meeting Hal. Laskenay, her eyes as icy blue as ever and fixed unblinkingly on her subordinate, paid greater attention to the story than anyone else did: an accomplishment, since Menikas stood entranced by the tale with Ranler at his side. Everyone was accounted for. Everyone, that was, expect the one person who would never sit with the League again. When Kansten realized her companions had arrived she fell quiet, and Laskenay jumped up from her seat. “I need to speak with you,” Kora told the sorceress.

Leaving Lanokas to introduce the newcomers, Kora followed the League’s female head to the room on the left, the room where she had been sleeping when Petroc first summoned her to the Hall. Could that honestly have been a mere week ago? A week and a half?

Laskenay put up a sound barrier. The profoundness of the sympathy with which she gazed at Kora threw the girl completely off her guard, until she realized Neslan had surely told, in full detail, all that had happened in Podrar. Laskenay seemed to want to mention Sedder, but Kora had not pulled her away for that, so she expressed her sorrow with a soft, stabilizing hand on Kora’s shoulder that proved how deeply she understood Kora’s loss. Kora remembered how Valkin had died, and a new admiration for his widow overcame her.

“It’s good to have you back,” was all Laskenay said. Kora pulled the chain of red gold from her sack and handed it over. “This is it? Kansten told me all about it. Have you decided how to use it?”

“I chose Alten. Laskenay, is the
Librette
in here?”

A puff of black smoke from against the far wall was answer enough. Kora ran over and started rifling through the book.

“What are you doing? I realize Neslan has a theory, about Zalski wanting a particular spell….”

“And Alten proved it,” said Kora. “He has mindstone now. He’s been searching for mindstone for months. Zalski wants it to use with a spell from this book, though I still don’t see why he couldn’t just use
Estatua
.”

“Mindstone requires an active mind and still body.
Estatua
is a freezing spell. Its victim literally is a statue, in suspended consciousness: there’s no brain function. A person can sit through centuries under the spell, and then be revived with no consequence.”

“So mindstone would be of no use with that incantation.”

Laskenay and Kora flipped through the
Librette
, page after page, searching for a spell that could be used in conjunction with mindstone. Finally, near the back, was a spell called “
Carapacio.
” Its description said it:

“Freezes the body while leaving the brain untouched. Laskenay, this is it!”

Laskenay trembled briefly, but intensely enough that she nearly dropped the tome from her lap. “This spell is awful,” she said. “Torturous.”

Kora stared at her. “It’s just a variation on
Estatua
, isn’t it?”

“Leaving the brain active means the brain requires oxygen, oxygen it can’t receive because the victim doesn’t breathe, because no blood can circulate. Someone under this spell would asphyxiate within two minutes.”

“Lifestone,” muttered Kora.

“What did you say?”

“Alten said something about a Lifestone.”

“Yes, with this spell Zalski would want the Lifestone. I don’t know how he thinks he’ll find it, it’s been lost for generations longer than the
Librette
.”

Kora did a double take. “You know what the Lifestone is?”

“It’s a legend, most likely based in fact. Three or four centuries before Hansrelto there lived a sorceress—she’s given various names—whose love was on his deathbed. They both were young, and it seemed unjust that he should die, so nearly out of her mind with grief, this sorceress enchanted some kind of stone—some accounts say a diamond, others a sapphire or piece of quartz—into the Lifestone. This stone keeps its possessor from crossing to death, no matter injury or illness. It took the woman a full month to create and cast the enchantment, by which time her love was nearing his last day and in great pain. She gave him the stone and he took it with gratitude.”

“Why didn’t she just heal him?”

“Medical magic is a more recent phenomenon, Kora. Much more than we, the ancients were comfortable considering pain and death unavoidable aspects of life, even necessary ones. The legend teaches that moral, and as Neslan could tell you, much of their literature as well. They never invited illness, but they claimed it purged the soul.

“Now, while the Lifestone will keep a man alive, it does nothing to treat his pain or heal his body. This man’s ills were incurable, and as his pain grew more and more severe he descended into madness. The sorceress, horrified by what she’d done, took the stone from him, and he died almost instantly. She tried everything she could to destroy her abomination, to break the enchantment, but by its nature the charm was unbreakable and protected its medium, the stone, from any damage. The woman could do nothing but burn her work, all evidence of the spell, and hide the Lifestone where none would ever find it. In the mountains, it’s told.”

“Sorcerers have an affinity for the mountains, don’t they?”

“It seems so, if the legend is true. The stone could be anywhere.”

“Including with Zalski,” said Kora. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep her voice level. “This Lifestone, would it possibly keep someone under Hansrelto’s spell alive while Zalski used mindstone to uncover all his secrets?”

“It would indeed.”

“That explains….” Kora covered her mouth. “That explains why Zalski tried to kidnap Kansten. He didn’t want to kill her, not right away. He was going to wait until he had the
Librette
and both those stones. Laskenay, he’s out to capture one of us, someone from the League, because then he’d know everything.”