For Brenna, the ride south on the dogsled was like a nightmare from which there was no waking, one of those nightmares in which a monster was chasing her and no matter how fast she ran she couldn’t get away… except in this dream they were chasing the monster, and getting closer and closer to it far faster than she could have run.
She couldn’t believe that all their efforts to make the airship flyable and escape from Falk’s manor had been for naught. She couldn’t believe that High Raven-who she had decided was a fair and honorable man who would not turn Anton over to the fate that Falk and Mother Northwind intended for him-would betray them to the witch just because she used to heal broken bones and chase away fevers for the clan. The Commoners in Falk’s demesne also praised her healing abilities, but that didn’t make what she intended to do any less evil!
But here they were, sliding across the ice pulled by the panting dogs whose breath-fog swept across them, as though to emphasize just how fast they were moving toward the one place they didn’t want to go.
The first night they made use of a rough stone building nestled against a hillside, all of them, men and dogs and Brenna alike, sleeping around a central fire pit, the men taking turns watching through the night. There was little talking.
After another day’s miserable travel, they made camp in a sheltered cove, where piles of boulders formed a kind of protective embrace around a curved beach, and the ground inside sloped up sharply into trees. You couldn’t say it stopped the relentless, bitter wind entirely, but it reduced it to fretful, swirling breezes that, unlike the wind on the lake, didn’t feel like a sharp knife cutting deeper into any exposed flesh… until you couldn’t feel the flesh at all, of course. Before they had left the Minik camp, their new captors had insisted that both she and Anton spread protective animal grease on their faces and any other skin left exposed by their coats and gloves, augmented by the additional clothing their new captors had brought with them. They hadn’t suffered frostbite, but they smelled like last week’s breakfast.
A ring of fire-blackened stones on the beach mutely testified that the cove had been used for camps before. As tents were hauled out and set up by one man, fire and food were arranged by another, and the other two tended to the dogs, giving them food and water and thoroughly examining ther feet-two were already wearing little leather booties that Brenna might have thought cute if the dogs wearing them didn’t weigh better than half as much as she did and had fangs roughly the size of her little finger, which they enthusiastically showed whenever she got too near.
Brenna and Anton sat on rocks as close to the fire as they could get once it was lit. Brenna had been cold the day before; after a second day on the ice, she was beginning to think she would never be warm again. But she’d heard their leader say they would be off the ice some time tomorrow, and now she dared to ask him about it as he hung a stewpot from the metal rod suspended over the fire by two forked sticks.
She didn’t really expect him to answer, but he surprised her. “Before noon. Foam River. Not that we’re going into the town. But that’s where the next lot’ll take over.” He spat into the fire, which sizzled. “Good riddance, I say. Don’t know what you’re wanted for, but I’ll be glad to be-”
He stopped in mid-sentence, looking puzzled, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell face forward into the fire. Brenna screamed and jumped up, and only then, as his clothes began to smolder and the smell of cooking meat rose into the still night air, saw the feathered shaft protruding from his back.
The other three had spun as one at the sound of their leader falling into the fire, and as one they fell, two killed instantly, the third screaming in agony as a shaft shattered his knee. Blood fountained from a severed artery, and his screaming was short-lived.
The screams had set off the dogs, which howled and barked and ran wildly back and forth. Anton ran to Brenna, who grabbed him and hugged him tight, pressing her face into his shoulder, trying to close her ears to the horrible sizzling of the man in the fire, to the noise of the dogs…
… to the crunch of running footsteps in the snow. Her head shot up as six men burst into the light, the naked swords in their hands glittering with frost. Enchanted, she thought.
The new arrivals were dressed all in white: white coats, white trousers, white boots. Even their helmets were painted white. But on their shoulders were round blue patches slashed across with a streak of red.
Army soldiers, Brenna realized. The first, a tall man with a large, beaked nose and a bushy mustache rimed with frost, strode over to them. “I am Sergeant Meerk,” he said. “By order of Lord Falk, I arrest you. You are to be returned immediately to the Palace.”
Brenna exchanged a startled look with Anton. It made no sense! The men who had just died had already been taking them to Falk… well, Mother Northwind, but that would have been on Falk’s behalf…
… wouldn’t it?
But if these men were acting on Lord Falk’s orders, maybe…
“I am Lord Falk’s ward,” she said. “I thank you for your rescue, but I must demand that you-”
“I know who you are,” the guardsman said. “And my orders are to arrest you for certain, him,” he nodded at the boy, “if at all possible… and do what we liked with the others.” He took a couple of steps to the fire and kicked the body off of it. “Commoner trash!” Brenna hid her face against Anton’s shoulder again, but not before she’d had one horrible glimpse of what was left of the dead man’s face.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled to Anton.
“Not on my shoulder,” he whispered. “Although I guess it would be fair turnabout for what I did to you the day we met…”
Despite everything, that made her chuckle. It threatened to turn into hysterics, though, so she bit it off. “There’s something strange here,” she whispered. “The dogsledders were taking us to Mother Northwind, who Falk told to twist your mind to make you loyal to him. These guards are taking orders from Falk, too… and yet they killed Mother Northwind’s men.”
“I know,” Anton murmured. “Maybe-”
But Sergeant Meerk was pulling him away. “Enough of that,” he snapped. “There’s a carriage waiting to take us to New Cabora, but we have to get to the road and it’s a long walk.”
He snapped orders, and while two men stayed behind to deal with the cleanup, he and the other three formed a square around Anton and Brenna and marched them up the hillside into the snowy forest.
There was no chance to talk again during that hourslong hike, no chance to talk in the carriage with two guards keeping them silent.
As it turned out, there would be no chance to talk again for a very long time.
Karl jerked awake, not sure why. He lay in darkness for one long breathless moment, then heard the noise of splintering wood downstairs, followed by shouts and the clash of steel on steel.
His bedroom door crashed open, letting in red light and acrid smoke. Denson, sword in hand, shouted, “Get up!” Karl, naked, scrambled out of bed and grabbed the dressing gown Goodwife Beth had given him, but he barely had time to slip his arms into it before Denson grabbed him and shoved him toward the far end of the hallway, where the false wall hid the extended corridor built into the hillside. Karl managed to get the dressing gown cinched as they skidded to a halt at the wall. Downstairs there was a flash of blue light and a man screamed, the sound ending abruptly. Denson had opened the panel in the left wall that hid the lever to open the door; he pulled it hard.
“What’s going on?” Karl said. His heart pounded in his ears. Two minutes earlier he had been fast asleep and his brain was playing catch-up to his frightened body. “An attack?”
“Falk’s rutting guards,” Denson snarled. “Jopps must have sold us out. Open, damn it!” he shouted at the wall, which was slowly starting to slide aside.
More shouts, the clash of swords, on the stairs now. Karl, glancing back, saw Vinthor’s head appear. Then Denson grabbed him and dragged him into the hidden hallway, turned and grabbed another lever on that side. As the door began to close, Karl saw Vinthor drop from sight. An instant later two men in the blue-and-red uniforms of Royal guards stormed up the stairs and went straight into Karl’s room. Finding it empty, they turned the other way-just in time to see the door to the secret passage closing, but with no time to reach it before it sealed.
Denson twisted the door lever sideways, and something heavy thudded into place inside the door. “Out the back door,” Denson said, hurrying on down the corridor. “Horses up there.”
“I’ll freeze,” Karl said, remembering the last time he had been marched barefoot through the snow. “I need boots at least, a coat-”
“You’ll be lucky if I leave you your head, you mewling piece of MageLord filth,” Denson growled. “I don’t care if your balls freeze off.” They’d reached the end of the hallway. Denson pulled open that door, revealing the room where Karl had found him playing cards with Jopps the day he’d arrived. A man Karl hadn’t met stood behind the overturned table, a crossbow leveled at the door. He lowered it at the sight of Denson and the Prince. “What’s-” he began.
“Royal rutting guards,” Denson said. He turned and slammed the door shut, then lowered a heavy oak bar across it. “Time to get the hell out. Where’s Spilk?”
The man with the crossbow jerked his head up. “Went up to watch the exit. Haven’t heard anything.”
“Then there’s still a chance. If you have to fight,” he said to the man with the crossbow, “watch for spells. Someone stops moving, gets a distant look like he’s taking a shit, shoot him. They got Lazy with a melonbreaker. Head came apart like rotting fruit.” He stared up the ladder leading to a hidden exit high above on the top of the hill. “If it was Jopps,” he said almost to himself, “they’re going to be waiting up there. Waiting for the first head to show itself…” He turned to the crossbowman. “Give me your helmet.”
“What-?”
“Give it to me!” Denson barked. The crossbowman hesitated, then slipped it off and handed it to him. Denson turned and jammed it onto Karl’s head, almost taking his right ear off. Breaking noises came from the other side of the barred door. Denson grunted. “Didn’t take them long.” He pointed up. “Climb. You stick your head out first and we’ll see if you keep it.”
“But-”
“If they’re out there, you royal turd, then Spilk is already dead and me and Riddler here ain’t long for this world. But I’ll still count it a good night if they kill their precious Prince trying to rescue him. Now climb, or I’ll shove this sword up your lily-white ass so far it’ll snick out your tonsils. Go!”
Terrified, Karl turned and started to climb.
The rusty iron rungs were cold beneath his feet, and once he had climbed a half dozen, he’d left the dim light of the guardroom behind him and moved upward through total darkness. The helmet, a size too small, squeezed his head so that he could feel his pulse pounding in his temples. The nightgown had come untied and flapped open around him, and the cold and the prospect of what lay ahead alike had his testicles trying to crawl inside his belly.
But he could do nothing but climb. Denson was behind him with sword in hand.
Suddenly he saw, over his head, a slightly less-dark circle within the black of the tunnel, a tinge of red to it. He slowed, then gasped as something sliced his heel, warm blood trickling from the wound. Denson wouldn’t let him stop. He could only go on.
With a deep breath and a prayer to the SkyMage he didn’t believe in, he poked his helmeted head up into the gray light, and suddenly everything happened at once.
He glimpsed half a dozen men, all guards, encircling the opening, saw a body lying in bloody snow just a few feet away-and then heard “Don’t! It’s the-” screamed at the same instant that blue light exploded all around his head, blinding him. There was a wet popping sound, and pieces of something wet struck his face and slid down it. He blinked, dazed but unhurt, then hands seized his shoulders and pulled him from the tunnel into the bitterly cold air.
“Down!” he heard Denson shout in the tunnel, then Riddler’s voice, “They’re underneath us, too!” and then an inferno of blue flame roared up from the tunnel behind him, followed by a plume of greasy black smoke… and then silence.
Someone was putting a heavy fur-lined leather cloak around Karl’s shoulders, someone else had found him boots, but Karl barely noticed. All he could see was the dead guard lying in blood-soaked snow just the other side of the secret exit, his headless body encircled by grisly bits of red, white, and gray.
Mother Northwind spent the day after Tagaza’s tragic death in her quarters, pleading fatigue. In fact, she was waiting: waiting for the magelink to come to life, with news of Brenna’s progress toward Goodwife Beth’s. Once Brenna was in the safe house, Mother Northwind thought with something approaching smugness, she could at last bid farewell for good to Lord Falk. After Kravon was dead, Verdsmitt was welcome to kill Falk, too, if he still wanted to-and she was pretty sure, after the speech Falk had “made” him make, that he still wanted to. Of course, by that time, if all went well, the Barriers would have collapsed and magic with them, and without his enchanted toys to help him, Verdsmitt would have to strangle Falk with his bare hands, but again, she thought he’d be willing to try.
As night fell, she began anticipating the call from the team collecting Brenna and Anton at Foam River. But the magelink did not activate.
Midnight came and went with no word, and at last, reluctantly, she decided she would risk magelinking to Goodwife Beth directly. She summoned the glowing blue globe, sent out the call… and got nothing in return. No link could be made.
She left the globe active so long that the temperature in the room dropped noticeably; then, shivering a little, she snapped it out of existence and moved closer to the fire.
What could have happened? Had they been forced to flee, move to a different safe house, Beth somehow prevented from taking the magelink-bracelet provided by Verdsmitt with her?
If that were the case, she might not hear anything for days, until someone managed to get a message to her through the Common Cause network of cells and sympathizers. She might get a knock in the middle of the night, a scrawled note slipped under her door… or she might not, if the message or messenger went awry. She’d be right where Falk was, wondering where Karl and Brenna were.
Frustrated and beginning to be worried, she went to bed. In the morning, there did indeed come a knock on the door. She hobbled to it and opened it to find a liveried servant holding a silver tray with a card on it. “Your pardon, milady,” he said formally. “The Honorable Lord Falk, Minister of Public Safety, requests your presence at dinner tonight in the Prince’s Banquet Hall. I am to tell you that the entire King’s Council will also be present.”
Mother Northwind was astonished, and a little horrified. What on Earth can Falk be thinking? she thought. He’s always kept me in the shadows. Why is he dragging me out to a formal dinner with the King’s Council, of all people?
Her first instinct was to say “No.” But… until she knew for certain where Brenna and the Prince were, she needed Falk, which meant putting up with his arrogance, his assumption that she was just a useful tool-a powerful, dangerous tool, but still a tool. A tool, she thought, does not refuse to be used.
And then she smiled a little. Besides, it would be interesting to see the Councillors. They wouldn’t recognize in her the much younger Healer Makala, who had once lived in the Palace and tended all of them at one time or another. She imagined herself, in the middle of the dinner, shouting, “I’ve seen you all naked!” Her smile turned to a chuckle. “Tell Lord Falk,” she said, still chuckling-the servant very carefully not reacting to that no-doubt unexpected response-“that I am honored by the invitation and will attend with pleasure.”
“Yes, milady.”
“And don’t call me milady,” Mother Northwind said. “I’m not yours, and I’m definitely not a lady.” And then she shut the door on the servant’s bemused face.
She knew a lot about those Councillors. It was while healing Lord Athol’s hemorrhoids that she had found out about his son’s “perversion” and supposedly tragic but actually most welcome suicide, and begun putting together the pieces that had led her to the oh-so-valuable Verdsmitt a few years later. She’d known enough about Lady Estra’s under-the-table deals with merchants and suppliers to blackmail several dozen people, had she just wanted to be rich, and knew about the idiot, illegitimate son that Lady Vin kept locked in a basement room in her manor up by Berriton. But of course, all that information was long out of date now. Shaking a few hands, being helped to her seat and out of it again… she couldn’t glean much in such short moments of contact, but she could probably at least, if she were to use Falk’s terminology, “update her files” on them.
If her plan proved out, none of that information would likely matter, but you could never have too much information, Mother Northwind thought. Falk had once told her there was a saying in his trade that “ninety percent of the intelligence you collect is useless; the trouble is, you never know which ninety percent it is.”
And so it was that Mother Northwind allowed a young man-very interested in (much younger) ladies, but without much of anything else in his head-to take her arm and escort her to the Prince’s Banquet Hall, a relatively small dining area near Karl’s quarters on the fourth floor of the west wing. It was surprisingly tasteful for a formal Palace room: black-and-white tiled floor, white walls, a black fireplace, a long black table spread with snowy white linen, black sideboards with white marble tops. A silver chandelier sparkled overhead. They came in through large side doors; a swinging door at one end of the room led to a kitchen, from which good smells were emerging, while a closed door at the other end of the room led, she supposed, through a hidden hallway to the empty quarters of Prince Karl.
The Councillors milled about, talking in low voices, sipping from the glasses of sparkling wine and nibbling the appetizers the servants circulated among them on silver trays. Mother Northwind recognized all of the Councillors at once, though they hadn’t, for the most part, aged well; too much time in the Palace, too many dinners like this one, had put too many pounds on some of them and gave the others a kind of… preserved look, like a corpse in stasis.
Of course, one Councillor was literally a preserved corpse: Tagaza, the First Mage, who would remain in stasis until a state funeral could be organized, after travel became easier in the spring. His death might have contributed to some of the somberness Mother Northwind detected in the room, but she suspected what contributed to it a lot more was the trouble in the Commons: the attack on the Prince, his disappearance, Falk’s destruction of the Square, the sabotage of the MageFurnace. T he MageLords, Mother Northwind thought with some satisfaction, are feeling a lot less sure of themselves than they are accustomed to.
She smiled. Just wait until I’m finished with them. She turned that smile on a servant who had approached her with wine. “Why, thank you, I believe I will.”
Falk was engaged in conversation with Lord Athol in the corner by the kitchen door; he saw her came in and detached himself from the Prime Adviser to greet her.
“Mother Northwind,” he said. “How good of you to come.” He nodded to the Councillors. “I told the King’s Council of your tremendous, though sadly unsuccessful, attempt to save Tagaza’s life, and they all wanted to meet you.”
“Well, I’m honored, my lord,” Northwind said, a little too loudly, as though she were slightly deaf. “It’s not often a simple country Healer like me gets to hobnob with the great and powerful.”
Falk’s smile seemed genuine, and she suspected she knew why. “Well, then,” he said. “Allow me to introduce you.”
She resisted the impish impulse to ask him to take her arm, knowing full well why he never had and never would, and instead hobbled on her own over to the first of the Councillors.
Half an hour later, as she sat down to dinner on Falk’s left hand-Falk himself, as host, sitting at the table’s head, and Lord Athol on his right-she knew a lot more about the Councillors, but none of it seemed very important. Lady Vin’s idiot son had died, “cause unknown,” and been quietly buried on her estate. Lady Estra was still corrupt. Lord Athol had pretty much forgotten about his long-dead first son and was much more focused on his now tenyear-old replacement, although slightly worried by the boy’s recently displayed tendency to torture small animals.
When they were all seated, one chair remained unfilled, between Athol and Falk. As the servants stepped back into their assigned places along the walls, ready to pour and serve and tidy away as required, Lord Falk tapped his glass with his spoon for quiet, then got to his feet.
“Lords and Ladies, Mother Northwind,” he said, “I know you must wonder why I have invited you to such a banquet after so many disturbing events. I’m sure you have said to each other, ‘What is there to celebrate?’
“To which I reply… this!” He turned toward the closed door Mother Northwind had assumed led to the Prince’s quarters. It swung open…
… and Prince Karl, in full Royal finery, limping a little but otherwise apparently unharmed, stepped into the room.
The Councillors surged to their feet. Mother Northwind did not. She felt as though she’d been slapped. She glared at Falk, and saw him looking straight at her. The bastard, she thought. Making a point that he knows a few things I don’t. Putting me in my place.
She couldn’t stay seated while the Prince made his way to his chair at the far end of the table. Protocol and prudence alike dictated that she climb to her feet. And so she did, while the Councillors applauded-actually applauded!-Prince Karl as he limped to his place.
Verdsmitt gave you a few pointers on stage-managing this, didn’t he, Falk? she thought.
Once the Prince sat down, Falk gestured for the others to do likewise, but he wasn’t done yet. “My Lords and Ladies, Prince Karl was rescued from the Common Cause thugs holding him prisoner near Quillhill early this morning. We have captured the woman who ran what proved to be a quite substantial hideout and staging area for the Cause, and are questioning her.
“But that is not the only good news I have to share with you this evening. For obvious reasons I have not made it widely known, though some of you may have heard rumors, but my young ward, Brenna, whom many of you have met on her annual visits to the Palace, was also kidnapped… kidnapped from my manor and taken cross-country to the Great Lake, where she was temporarily held by savages. They sold her to the Common Cause, who perhaps hoped to blackmail me in some fashion. Fortunately, a Mounted Ranger spotted them, and she, too, has been rescued.
“She will not be joining us this evening, as she recovers from her ordeal, but it is also her return to my love and care that I wish to celebrate tonight.” He paused and looked around the table, smiling a smile Mother Northwind dearly wished she could personally rip from his face. “There is one more exciting development to report, but for that, I will wait until tomorrow morning’s formal meeting. For now, let us eat and drink and enjoy ourselves in celebration of the safe return of both the Prince and my dear ward Brenna. Lords and Ladies, Mother Northwind, I give you a toast: Prince Karl!”
“Prince Karl!” the Councillors said, and then began talking in much more animated voices than before while the servants brought the onion soup.
It smelled wonderful, and Mother Northwind had eaten little all day, but after what she had just heard, she wanted nothing to do with it. Lord Falk continued to watch her, however, and so she forced herself to eat it, every spoonful, though each one tasted like sawdust, and slid down her throat and rested in her stomach like lead.
Karl ate mechanically, mouthed pleasantries to the Councillors, smiled, and felt dead and confused inside. Was it all over, then? Had everything that had begun with the assassination attempt by the lake boiled down to those few moments of bloody terror at Goodwife Beth’s farm? The Common Cause, or at least their mysterious Patron, had at first wanted him dead. Then, fortunately, they had decided he might have some value alive after he obligingly handed himself over to them.
But now, just like that, he was back in the Palace. Goodwife Beth was in prison. Most of those who had held him were dead. And it sounded like Davydd Verdsmitt himself had pulled in his claws and was rubbing up against Falk like a house cat, purring and mewling for scraps from the MageLord’s table.
His own vehemence surprised him. The Cause was his enemy, and now it had been removed. He had been returned to his former life of indolence and indulgence, awaiting the sad demise of his father some unguessable number of years in the future. He should be pleased; hell, he should be ecstatic.
And yet… the people he’d met in the Cause had seemed more real, more alive, more important, in fact, than the lords and ladies at table with him.
Except… her. He gazed down the length of the table at the strange old woman seated at Falk’s left hand, across from Lord Athol (who had hurried down to offer his unctuous welcome as soon as the toast was finished). “Mother Northwind,” Falk had called her, some backcountry Healer from near his manor. He had offered no explanation as to why she was invited, when the First Healer himself had not been. But the dark eyes that peered back at him on either side of the prominent, blade-sharp nose did not seem to match the bent and wizened exterior. They did not look like the eyes of an old woman, they looked like the eyes of a hawk that had seen its prey, and Karl found himself profoundly uncomfortable under that gaze.
The other person notable by his absence was the First Mage, Tagaza. Karl wondered about that, and when Falk got up from his place at Karl’s right side to have a word with the head server, Karl leaned over to Lord Athol, seated at his left, and said in a low voice, “Lord Athol, where is Tagaza? Surely the First Mage should be here.”
Athol’s eyes widened. “Did you not hear, Your Highness?” he said, and perhaps he had had one too many glasses of wine, for his voice was loud enough that heads turned to look at him-including Falk. “The First Mage is dead. When the Common Cause sabotaged the MageFurnace, the spell he was attempting went fatally awry.”
Karl stared at him, shocked. Tagaza, dead? But-“What kind of spell?” he said. “What sabotage?” He felt anger rising in him, and turned his head toward Falk, now striding back in his direction. “Lord Falk, why was I not informed of these developments?”
“Your Highness,” said Falk, “you have barely been returned to us after a traumatic experience. I did not wish to trouble-”
“But I wish to be troubled, Falk,” Karl said, his voice rising. “I wish to be troubled with the affairs of the Kingdom I will one day rule!” He slammed his fist down onto the table. “You will not treat me like a child, my lord. You will treat me like the Prince and Heir I am, or when I am King, I assure you, you will no longer be Minister of Public Safety!”
All the Councillors were staring at him, almost comically frozen in place by his outburst. Mother Northwind’s expression remained unreadable. Nor was she watching him: she was watching Falk, and a moment later, every head turned in his direction as the Councillors awaited his response. They’re all terrified of him, Karl thought. He probably knows things about all of them that would prove embarrassing or worse if he released them. They will never support his ouster, if it really comes to that.
But at that moment, Karl didn’t care-didn’t care that all the careful political instruction Tagaza had given him over the years told him he was being a fool. He had been attacked, kidnapped, imprisoned, and almost killed by one of his own guards. Either he was the Prince, or he wasn’t: and if he was, then it was about damn time he acted like it.
Falk’s face was doing a very credible imitation of a thunderstorm. “Your Highness, this is neither the time nor the-”
“Then we will discuss it immediately following this dinner, Lord Falk,” Karl said with all the hauteur he could manage. “We will discuss it in detail. I want to know everything that has happened since I was kidnapped. I have heard some of what you have done in the Commons, and I have many questions about that, as well: such as how you expect me to rule a kingdom you seem determined to plunge into civil war, Mageborn against Commoners.” He gave Falk his coldest stare, though his heart was racing in his chest and he knew if he took his hands off the table they would be trembling. “I hope you have answers.” And then he turned his head away from Falk to Lord Athol, and said, “And how has the ice-fishing been this winter, my lord?”
It had to be his imagination, but he could almost swear he felt Falk’s gaze burning into him like a pair of hot pokers.