Magebane (8 page)

“Your Highness,” Teran said, “the best definition I know of my job is to be willing to die between you and a crossbow bolt.”

“I'd rather you didn't.” Karl reconsidered. “What I mean is, I'd be very grateful to you if you did, but I hope it doesn't come to that.”

“It should have come to that today, Your Highness. If I had remained closer.”

“Then you'd be dead, and I might be, too,” Karl said forcefully. “Because I think that crossbow bolt would have killed you for sure.” He hesitated, but then rushed on. Suddenly keeping it a secret didn't seem so important anymore, not if it had just saved his life. “Teran, I think I know why the assassin's attack failed.”

Teran frowned. “Your Highness?”

“Do you remember that night when we were twelve, and we sneaked into the maids' bathing quarters?”

Teran's face flickered into a smile. “I am unlikely to forget, Your Highness.”

“That door had
not
been left accidentally unlocked, Teran. I unlocked it.”

Teran blinked. “A magical lock? But as Heir, you . . .”

“. . . have no magic. Indeed.”

“I don't understand.”

“I don't either, exactly. But . . .” Karl explained about his strange ability. When he was finished, Teran looked . . . frightened. Which wasn't exactly the reaction Karl had expected.

“Your Highness,” said Teran. “You know what that sounds like.”

“What do you mean, what it sounds like? It sounds like what it is. I have this ability. It's probably because I'm the Heir, ebut . . .”

“Your Highness, that is not what I meant,” Teran said. He took a deep breath. “That sounds like the Magebane.”

“The Mage—” Karl gaped. “But that's . . . crazy. The Magebane is a myth. Tagaza says—”

“‘Tagaza says,'” Teran mimicked. “Of course he does! But the common people . . . they are not as dismissive of the stories of the Magebane. Particularly the Commoners. After all, the Magebane, it is said, is the one who delivered them from the MageLords in the Old Kingdom.”

Karl snorted. “I'm not the Magebane, Teran. I've got a minor ability. Like I said, it's probably related to the fact I'm the Heir—”

“Your Highness, forgive my bluntness, but you're being a fool.”

For a moment Karl was
not
inclined to forgive his bluntness. He felt a rush of anger. But he tamped it down and said, “Why do you say that?”

“Because if someone among the Mageborn thought you might be the Magebane . . . or even thought you might be
taken
for the Magebane by the Commoners . . . that alone might be enough reason to kill you.”

Karl gaped. He'd never thought of that. “But . . . no one knows.”

“Your Highness, surely you have lived long enough now . . . as have I . . . to discover that many of the things you did as a child that you thought were secret were in fact well-known to the adults in your life.”

“Um . . .” Karl couldn't deny
that
. “Lord Falk did not mention the possibility,” he said. “So I don't think
he
knows . . .”

“Perhaps not.” Teran's voice grew guarded at the mention of Falk. “Though I would be . . . reluctant to make assumptions about what Falk does or does not know.”

“I'm assuming you won't tell him,” Karl said, lightly, as a joke, but Teran's face grew still and closed. “Teran?”

“No, Your Highness.” For some reason, the words didn't seem to come easy. “No. I will not tell him.”

“Well . . . good.”
What was
that
all about?
Karl wondered as he took his first sip of the fiery yellow liqueur in his glass, then forgot about it as he considered Teran's suggestion that a Mageborn might want to kill him simply to prove to Commoners he wasn't the Magebane. That made . . . some kind of sense, he supposed. Except, of course, for the complete failure of the plan. If any Commoners really thought he was the Magebane, they must be completely convinced of it now that he'd walked away from a magical attack that had incinerated his attacker.

The other thing that worked against Teran's suggestion was the simple fact that the Mageborn most likely to want to eliminate someone who might stir up the Commoners was Falk, and if Falk had wanted to kill him, he could have done it any time in the last eighteen years.

But he didn't like Falk's suggestion that Commoners were behind the attack either. He had gone out of his way to reach out to the Commons, at Tagaza's urging; the First Mage had often told him he hoped there would someday be better relations between Commoners and Mageborn. He had attended any number of balls and festivals and grand openings in New Cabora, filling in for the King. He'd always gotten along well with the Commoners he met. After all, officially he didn't have any magic either.

Besides, there were surely greater acts of terror a determined Commoner could come up with, acts that would have far more impact, than the murder of the Heir, since the only thing killing him would accomplish would be to pass the Keys on to some other Heir outside of the current line of succession. Should Kravon's line die out with Karl, it wouldn't even be seen as a great loss, Kravon being . . . what he was.

He sighed. Too many questions, and no answers. “It's beyond me,” he said. “I guess we'll just have to hope Falk figures it out.”

“Falk is very resourceful, Your Highness,” said Teran.

Taking another sip of asproga, Karl sat down in one of the two high-backed blue armchairs set in front of the fire on either side of a round marble-topped table. “I'm tired of thinking about my narrow escape from death,” he said. “It was interesting for the first hour or two, but . . .” He grinned, and after a moment Teran grinned back.

“Aye, Your Highness, it is becoming tiresome,” he said.

“Let's talk about something else. I've been meaning to ask you: I heard a rumor that Verdsmitt's Players are coming to the palace. True?”

Teran nodded, his grin widening. “Yes, Your Highness. I meant to inform you after your swim. I knew you'd be pleased. They're scheduled to perform in the Great Hall the day after tomorrow.”

“It's been . . . what, three years?”

“Yes, Your Highness. A long time, for Verdsmitt. He used to premiere a new play every year, but he seems to have struggled with this one.”

“What's it called?”

“
The Hidden Kingdom
.”

“Historical?”

“No one seems to know,” Teran said. “It's a mystery to everyone . . . well, except the actors, I presume.”

“Intriguing,” Karl said. Over the centuries, Court entertainment had solidified like kitchen grease left outside the Barrier in midwinter. The same songs, the same plays, the same stories, sung, acted, or read in the same way as ten years ago, and fifty, and a hundred. All had become part of Tradition, and though it was only Tradition, and not Law, in some ways it held more force than mere Law could ever muster. Within the greenhouse-like climate of the Court, the potential loss of face from flouting Tradition was far more feared than a mere fine or flogging.
Nothing has changed around here for decades
, Karl thought . . . but then the memory of the attack that morning struck him like a blow.
Until now
.

He shoved the thought away and took another sip of asproga. “I can't wait to see it, Teran.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, savoring the warm glow of the liqueur in his belly.

“That makes two of us, Your Highness,” Teran said.

Lord Falk descended a long flight of stairs into the basement of the Palace's east wing, halting at an iron-bound door. Frost had painted it in glittering white, the sure telltale of powerful magic at work. Falk pulled his black gloves from his belt, put them on, then placed both hands flat on the door. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind for the energy all around him, and the magic welling up from the lode deep beneath the Palace. He twisted his mind into the necessary shape, and willed the door to open. Even through his gloves he felt a sudden bitter chill, then the door swung wide, fog briefly enveloping him as the warmer air of the dungeon contacted its frosted exterior.

Two Royal guards awaited him, swords drawn, their blades frosted like the door had been. “Password,” growled the one on the right.

“Periwinkle,” Falk said gravely.

“Hyacinth,” the one on the left proclaimed, and sheathed his sword, a small flurry of ice crystals sprinkling the flat square tiles of the floor. “Welcome, Lord Falk.”

“Timos, Anders.” Falk gave them both a smile, then shook his head. “I think I'll tell Brich to stay away from flowers next password cycle. I feel silly every time I come down here.”

The guards laughed and stepped aside. Falk smiled at them, but the smile vanished the moment he passed them. As much as possible, he preferred to be liked by those he commanded, both to cement their loyalty and to ensure they carried out their duties as efficiently as possible. In truth,
he
had insisted on the silly signs and countersigns, just to give him something to joke with them about. Brich, his secretary, had agreed with an amused smile of his own. After twenty-five years in Falk's service, he knew how the Minister of Public Safety's mind worked.

He was also one of the few who knew what it worked
toward
.

Falk's offices in the basement of the Palace were actually in the topmost of the dungeon's three levels. Here, high, thin, horizontal windows located just above ground level still let in a modicum of natural light. A dozen relatively comfortable cells on this level were reserved for Mageborn who had fallen under suspicion of somethingor-other but had to be well treated while those suspicions were investigated. All those cells were currently empty.

Not so the ones in the levels below, where no light penetrated, and less hope. As Falk walked to his office he reviewed his mental list of those held there. There were a couple of Commoners down there with links to the Common Cause; they'd be worth another round of questions. But he could think of no one likely to shed any light on the question of who had mounted the attack on the Prince.

Falk's dungeon was not primarily a place to incarcerate wrongdoers—far larger and more secure prisons on the outskirts of New Cabora and Berriton served that function, with separate facilities for Mageborn and Commoners. Rather, it was a place for gathering information.

Few people knew exactly
how
he gathered information, though, because no one who descended into those lower levels emerged with the ability to talk about it. Many never emerged at all, and those who did had had their memories carefully removed.

Falk considered that a merciful act.

Brich was hard at work in the outer office, seated at an enormous oak desk beneath a towering painting of an uncharacteristically regal King Kravon.
Artistic license
, Falk thought, as he usually did when he glanced at it.

Brich's fingers flew across the keyboard of one of the mechanical text-stampers recently invented by some clever Commoner and now being mass-produced in a smokebelching factory up in New Cabora's northeast sector, where a lot of manufacturing enterprises had begun to cluster. The constant clacking that had replaced the much more soothing sound of a pen nib scratching across paper annoyed Falk whenever he was in the outer office, but at least it didn't penetrate his inner sanctum, and he had to admit that Brich's reports had gotten much easier to read since the machine was installed.

More and more such clever contraptions were emerging from the Commons, attempts by the Commoners to circumvent their lack of magic through mechanical artifice. Falk considered them harmless curiosities, for the most part, though he kept a close eye on anything that could be developed into a weapon, and had already confiscated an ingenious device for spraying liquid fire. The inventor had claimed, during questioning, it was only an “agricultural aid” for burning brush out of farmers' fields.

He didn't much like the idea of
that
ending up in the hands of the radical, secret half of the Common Cause. Not that it would matter much in a very short time, if all went according to plan, but precisely because things were approaching a critical juncture, he really didn't want any more disruption. The radical faction of the Common Cause wanted to overthrow the King, the Council, and the rest of the Twelve, and while Falk garnered a modicum of private amusement from the fact that was also what
he
intended to achieve, it wouldn't stop him from ruthlessly exterminating those traitorous Commoners . . .

. . . if he could ever find out who they were. So far, they had maintained a remarkable and frustrating anonymity. He knew that they called their leader “the Patron,” but he had utterly failed to identify him or her, or any of his/her lieutenants.