The Shadowhand Covenant (29 page)

The Inquisitor General glared at Maloch, a warning that further outbursts wouldn't be tolerated. Then he leaned in to the High Laird and spoke quietly. The monarch flicked his hand, and the Inquisitor General sat up tall in his chair.

“It is determined that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the Shadowhands were responsible for the thefts from the royal vaults. This act alone is punishable by twenty
years in Umbramore Tower. Given that the offense is made worse by the theft of
magical
items, it is the determination of the court that the sentence currently imposed by the Palatinate—in the form of the shimmerhex—will continue for the next twenty years.”

The heads of the Lordcourt bobbed in approval.

“Furthermore,” the Inquisitor General said, “in light of his father's incarceration, it is ordered that Maloch Oxter be sent to the Larkfire Orphanage until he turns eighteen.”

Maloch looked ready to shout again, but Ma stood up brightly and said, “Begging your pardon, most excellent and wonderful of Inquisitors, but that won't be necessary.” She produced a piece of parchment. “I have here a very legal document signed by Yab Oxter, which says that should anything happen to him, he grants custody of his son, Maloch, to Ona and Allia Grimjinx. That would be us.”

Da waved to the Inquisitor General.

Maloch's head snapped around as he studied the document. “That . . . that's my da's handwriting.”

“Why, yes it is!” Ma said. Then, softer, “Or a remarkable forgery.”

She handed the parchment to our law-advocate, who in
turn gave it over to the Inquisitor General. He grunted in approval. “Very well, Ona and Allia Grimjinx will serve as young Mr. Oxter's guardians.”

Stunned, Maloch took his seat, a storm brewing in his eyes. Ma leaned over and whispered in his ear. Whatever she said did the trick. Instead of another outburst, Maloch settled for a malicious scowl.

What else?

The Inquisitor General picked up his copper orbs. “If these matters have been put to rest—”

“They have
not
been put to rest!”

This time, it was Reena who leaped to her feet and caused gasps among the court with her protest. “If the Shadowhands stole the relics, then the Sarosans are innocent and should be freed.”

Nalia cleared her throat. “There is no evidence that the Sarosans didn't assist the Shadowhands in some way. They may have provided shelter or food or—”

“That's a lie!” Holm now stood by his sister. He looked like he was wishing he had his blowgun right about now.

Nalia ignored the interruption. “And there is the question of their role in the attempted assassination of the Palatinate.”

“Kolo confessed that he alone was behind that,” Reena said. “The Sarosans are peaceful. You've locked our people up for no reason.”

Nalia continued to ignore Reena. “Perhaps, Your Majesty, as this inquiry was called to deal with the matter of the Sourcefire and the Shadowhands, we could convene another session—a private session—to discuss the Sarosans.”

The Inquisitor General consulted with the High Laird in a flurry of whispers, then announced, “These matters are now closed. The issue of the Sarosans will be addressed by the Inner Council in fifteen minutes.” He slammed the copper orbs together and it was done.

As people began to file out of the room, I turned to Reena and Holm, who looked stunned. “They
have
to let your parents go. I'm sure you'll be with them in no time.” But they seemed skeptical. I couldn't blame them.

While everyone else stood, Maloch slouched in his chair. I put my hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

He looked down at the table. “Da always said the risk of gaol is the price of admission for the life of a Shadowhand. He was guilty. But I can't believe they won't release him from the shimmerhex. I can't even visit him. . . .”

As the High Laird's advisers gathered on the dais, the Dowager stepped down and joined us at the table. We all bowed respectfully.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Da said.

“Annestra,” the Dowager reminded him.

Ma smiled and took the Dowager by the hands. “Annestra, we appreciate all you've done. Rescuing us, saving Jaxter. Above and beyond the call of royal duty.”

The Dowager blushed. She opened her mouth to speak when Nalia glided across the room and joined the semicircle of advisers who stood around the High Laird. The Dowager's eyes narrowed at the mage. “I don't like how Nalia has my brother's ear. The Palatinate's job is to govern the use of magic. In recent months, they've had too much say in matters of state. They've become more than counsel. The only reason the royal vaults were compromised in the first place is because of their intervention.”

I froze in place. “What?”

“They're the ones who insinuated Vengekeep was under a curse,” she explained. “They implied that every effort had to be made to keep the curse from spreading to the rest of the Provinces. It was Nalia's idea to send nearly all the Provincial
Guard to quarantine Vengekeep. If they'd stayed at their stations, the vaults would never have been compromised.”

I'd been stupid. Completely and totally and remarkably stupid. But suddenly, I understood what was really going on.

The High Laird stood, and his advisers parted. The Dowager smiled at us. “If you'll excuse me. It looks like the Sarosan discussion is about to move to another room”—she turned and winked at Reena and Holm—“and I have more than a few things to say on the matter.”

A member of the Provincial Guard approached me and bowed. “Jaxter Grimjinx?” she asked. When I nodded, she said, “The High Laird has granted the prisoner Kolohendriseenax a final request before sentencing.”

My jaw dropped. “
Final
request?”

The Dowager placed her hand on my arm. “He's not being put to death. They're imprisoning him in a shimmerhex like the Shadowhands.”

The guard continued. “The prisoner has requested a meeting with you. I'm to take you to his cell.”

Across the room, I watched Nalia bow respectfully to the High Laird. He smiled gently, hanging on her every word.

“Good,” I said. “I need to see him too.”

“If you quit while you're ahead, the mediocre thief wins.”

—Gnillian Grimjinx, coauthor of the Grimjinx/Aviard Peace Accords

I
guess I'd imagined that the prisons at the High Laird's castle would be a step above some of the filthy places my family and I had been. But as we descended to the dungeon, the familiar scent of mold and dirt assaulted my nose. The air was moist, the lighting scant. There must have been some royal law I didn't know about, declaring that no gaol cell could be even remotely livable.

The guard took me to an iron door, opened it, and allowed me through. I found myself in a small room that
smelled, if possible, a bit worse than the rest of the dungeon. Just across the way, a wall of bars separated me from Kolo.

The old man took great effort to rise. He winced, holding his lesion-covered arms. He drew a deep breath and leaned against the bars. “Thank you for coming, Jaxter.”

I walked right up to him. “You could end all this. Just tell the truth.”

“Jaxter, I—”

“The Palatinate hired the Shadowhands. Not you.”

I wasn't holding anything back. Kolo said nothing. “Or rather,” I continued, “the Palatinate hired you,
thinking
you were a Shadowhand, and you in turn hired Dylis and the others. It was the one thing I couldn't figure out. How did the Shadowhands know
exactly
when the vault security would be weak? How did they get accurate blueprints of the vaults? How did they know the ways to turn off the magical defenses? They could only have gotten that information from someone close to the High Laird.”

Kolo remained stoic for a moment, then sighed wistfully. “When those terrible prophecies besieged Vengekeep, the Palatinate saw an opportunity to seize the relics. They advised the High Laird to send all his soldiers to quarantine
the town-state. That left the vaults vulnerable.”

“But they couldn't steal the relics themselves, in case something went wrong and they were caught. So they went looking for the Shadowhands . . . and found you.”

Kolo shrugged. “It was all an accident, you know. Pure luck. I was sitting in a tavern in Smolderwick when I overheard some bumbling oaf making very awkward inquiries about hiring the Shadowhands. The gold rings on his fingers told me he was a mage. I guessed he was rogue, and I thought,
What does a rogue mage need with the Shadowhands?
So, on a whim, I asked him. Imagine my surprise when he spoke about five relics he needed stolen from the royal vaults. I knew only a member of the Lordcourt could provide so much detail about the magical defenses of the vaults. I thought they were stealing the relics to embarrass the High Laird.”

I folded my arms. “Nalia says the four relics are full of powerful magic.”

He shook his head. “I didn't know that then. I believed that stealing those four relics was a diversion, meant to hide their true objective: the Vanguard. I couldn't let them do that. And now they have relics that probably contain unimaginable power. . . .”

“But they don't have the Vanguard.”

Kolo chuckled softly. “Like I said, I was very lucky. The Palatinate hired me to steal five relics. I, in turn, hired the Shadowhands to steal
four
while I went after the Vanguard. When the Lordcourt dug up the chest and found only four of the relics, they assumed they'd been double-crossed by the Shadowhands. Then I sent an anonymous tip to the Palatinate, revealing the Shadowhands' true identities.”

Very clever. Kolo had gotten his two worst enemies—the Shadowhands and the Palatinate—to turn on each other while he got away. Except he didn't.

“And once they quietly got rid of the Shadowhands,” I said, “the Palatinate told the High Laird they believed the Sarosans were behind the thefts.”

Kolo nodded. “Because we represented the next biggest threat to them. People who hated magic and preached against it. People who knew how to fight magic
without
magic.”

His thin fingers wrapped around the cell bars. “This has been happening a long time, Jaxter. Think of the spiderbats. Anything that can resist magic has been disappearing. This is no accident.”

Kolo's words hit me hard. He was right. Silencing the
Sarosans was just the latest example. Even magic-resistant plants were dying out. That's why the Dowager was working to preserve them in her greenhouse.

“Why? Why are they doing this? And what is the Vanguard? A weapon? Where is it?”

Beyond the iron door, we could hear the jangling of keys and a muffled conversation.

“We don't have much time, Jaxter,” Kolo said.

“I can get you an audience with the High Laird,” I said, one eye on the iron door. “He needs to know what's going on. You need to tell him the truth.”

“Jaxter, I can't—”

“Then I'll tell him,” I said firmly.

Kolo could barely manage a rueful smile. “Jaxter, think of the lengths the Palatinate has gone to hide its involvement. They'll kill anyone they believe knows about what they've done. Even you. You can't tell anyone. Not yet. They must believe they got away with it. At least until you learn their true motives.”

My chest tightened. Me? What did he think
I
could do? “What do you mean, ‘true motives'?”

He moved to the cot where he'd been resting. He picked
up Tree Bag and held it out to me through the bars. “As part of my last request, they're allowing me to pass on the work for my next book. I'd like you to have it, Jaxter. You'll find notes on how to continue what I started.”

I grabbed the shoulder strap. “They let you keep this in your cell?” Anytime my family or I had gone to gaol, we'd been stripped of all personal belongings.

“Oh, it's fine,” he said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “The Palatinate used magic to search for anything harmful, and they
didn't find a thing
.” Kolo winked at me.

The door opened. I quickly slid Tree Bag over my shoulder as Nalia entered, eyes ablaze with malicious glee. A copper tingroat floated over her right shoulder, following wherever she moved.

Nalia ignored me and walked right up to the cell. With a flick of her finger, the cursed coin moved through the air between the bars and stopped close to Kolo's face.

“I'm here to impose the High Laird's sentence,” she said coyly. “However, if you tell me where I can find the Vanguard, I might be able to intervene on your behalf. You could spend the rest of your life in Umbramore Tower. It doesn't have to end like this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “‘End like this'?”

Kolo's eyes never left the tingroat. “I'm old, Jaxter. Very old. When the Shadowhands are released from their shimmerhex prisons, they'll go on with their lives. If I'm ever freed, it's doubtful I'll survive the resurrection.”