Lessek_s Key e-2 Read online

  It’s not the crashing and snapping of beams in the Prince Marek that finally wakes Garec Haile of Estrad, but the faint sound of shouting. His gaze slowly focuses on the heavy weave of a blanket he borrowed from his sister’s room the previous Twinmoon. The archer wriggles to a sitting position, shrugging off layers of wool, draws a few stabilising breaths and feels the gentle undulating rhythm of the harbour tide. ‘I’m on the boat,’ he says out loud.

  In a rush, the events of the past avens return; he jerks himself upright. ‘Steven! I’ve been shot. Oh, gods, I’ve been shot!’ He reaches for the arrow, the black Malakasian arrow he knows he will find jutting crookedly from his ribs – but despite the recollection of an intense burning pain as the polished shale pierced his skin, the young freedom fighter can find no sign of injury. ‘Gone,’ he says, feeling nothing but a tear in his tunic and the sticky remnants of blood drying on his clothing. ‘How can this be?’

  Wishing for more light to conduct a thorough examination, Garec takes a deep breath. There is no rattle, no telltale vibration of fluid pooling in his lungs. He places a hand over his heart; it, too, seems strong, thrumming beneath his fingers.

  Standing, Garec’s legs falter for a moment and he nearly topples headfirst into Orindale Harbour. Balancing, he stretches and cautiously considers his apparent good health. ‘I’m all right,’ he whispers and only then realises he is alone on the catboat. ‘Where is everybody?’

  Garec’s question is answered with another cry, faint but urgent. He feels his stomach roil as it comes again: ‘Brynne!’, a sob recognisable in the distant voice. Instinctively, Garec reaches for his bow.

  It’s not there.

  For a moment, he feels a nearly overwhelming sense of relief. He hoists the vessel’s small sail and almost immediately it is captured by the onshore breeze; the keel turns lazily in a loping circle towards the wharf. ‘Rutting boats,’ he grumbles, picking his way aft to the tiller. ‘I’ll be out here for the next Twinmoon.’

  ‘Brynne!’ The hopeless cry resonates through his bones; Garec guesses that his friend is dead. What happened? How long had he slept? Had they tried to take the Prince Marek without him? Awkwardly, he pulls the sail taut and gropes for a wooden stanchion along the starboard gunwale; failing to find one, he hangs on to the line in one hand while wresting the tiller with the other to bring the boat about. Navigating as best he can in the moonlit darkness, he sets a course for the sound of the distraught voice.

  Carpello Jax shifts three candles closer to the polished looking-glass propped above his fireplace mantel. His beard is coming on nicely: step one in his transformation.

  Sweat dampens his face and neck despite the evening breeze. He drags a ruffled linen sleeve across his forehead, a frequent move over the past several days. Not that it has been warm in Orindale; rather, Carpello sweats because he is grossly overweight, and because he anticipates his audience with Prince Malagon. He is sure the dark one knows Carpello’s schooner is moored in the harbour; it won’t be much longer before he’s summoned to the royal residence to present his report. Carpello has prepared a convoluted tangle of lies and remains confident he can sell his story to Prince Malagon: he is a businessman, and he lies for a living.

  Through the open windows, Carpello hears the sounds of a cataclysm unfolding in the harbour, but for the moment he doesn’t move to investigate. He is nervous, and that has awakened a handful of sublimated memories. The most tenacious this evening is Versen, the woodsman. Carpello runs a hand across the ample hillock of his abdomen, touching the wound dealt him by the woman just before she went overboard in an effort to free the troublesome Ronan. Carpello had meant to interrogate the girl and then to give her to his crew as a diversion, but things had gone terribly wrong. By the end of that day, he had lost both prisoners and his Seron escort.

  Carpello grimaces. It will be a difficult tale to weave for the prince; he reviews his own version once again, to ensure all the details are committed to memory, as if they had actually occurred. The sweaty businessman knows the secret to successful lying is believing one’s own fabrications; Prince Malagon will be Carpello ‘s most challenging audience yet.

  Outside, there is another explosion, but Carpello’s thoughts are still with the woodsman. Even facing torture and death, the young man had surprised him: ‘A very good friend of mine looks forward to meeting you,’ he had said. ‘If I were you, I would take my own life rather than ever run into her again.’

  ‘A woman? I shall be enchanted, I’m sure,’ Carpello had responded.

  ‘You’ll be dead,’ the Ronan had answered flatly, ‘and she’ll make it last for Twinmoons… a grisly death is on its way to Orindale right now.’

  Had Versen been bluffing? Carpello wipes the sweat from around his eyes once more. He doesn’t believe so. Versen had sounded convincing: a specific woman wanted to find and kill him. But why? Carpello feigns ignorance for a moment, trying out his ‘innocent’ face in the candlelit looking-glass. He watches it fall away. He knows why.

  Reaching into his belt, he withdraws a thin fillet knife with a tapered point and a polished edge. Wiping it on a chamois, he leans in close to the mirror and, with a steady hand, slices the bulbous mole from the side of his disfigured nose: step two.

  Blood blooms from the wound, dripping from Carpello’s sagging jowls to stain the frilly ruffles of his linen shirt. He sways unsteadily, feeling faint. His vision tunnelling, he staggers backwards to sit with a groan in a nearby chair. Carpello Jax begins to cry as Versen’s voice echoes grimly in his head: You’ll be dead… and she will make it last for Twinmoons.

  MIDDLE FORK, PRAGA

  Alen Jasper wakes, groans, rolls to one side and vomits repeatedly into a ceramic pot beside his bed. Too much wine tonight. Too much wine every night. Spitting between dry heaves, the former Larion Senator runs a wrist over his mouth and then his forehead: cold sweats; he might be sick.

  ‘Nonsense,’ the old man tells his darkened room. ‘You haven’t been sick in eighteen hundred Twinmoons. You drink too rutting much. That’s all, no need to lie about it now.’ He’s interrupted by the need to retch, but this time Alen vomits on the floor; the contents of the ceramic pot are too foul for a second round. Collapsing onto his back, he stares at the ceiling and feels the tremors begin. ‘Pissing demons, you can’t need a drink already.’ With a frustrated curse, he promises to deny himself another drop until after sunset the following day. ‘Suffer, you drunk fool. Go ahead and shake.’ The sweat rolls from his forehead, tickling the sensitive skin behind his ears and staining his already damp pillow grey.

  Alen breathes shallowly in an effort to ease the pain in his head and calm the angry waste churning in his stomach. He reaches for a cloth draped across a bedside chair. It’s a gesture he has perfected over hundreds of evenings similar to this, but tonight something is different. The cloth feels odd in his hands, as if his fingers, deadened from Twinmoons of drinking and malnutrition, have suddenly rejuvenated themselves. The cloth is softer; he can feel wrinkles, tiny imperfections in the weave that he has not noticed before. He catches the fleeting aroma of beeswax from a taper burning on his mantel.

  He stops wiping his face and inhales deeply. Behind the grim flavour of his vomit and beyond the sharp tang of the candle, he finds it: roast gansel. Churn prepared the meal two nights ago, and the smell is still hanging about his house. He hasn’t been able to detect aromas like this in fifty Twinmoons.

  Alen swings his feet over the edge of the bed, outside the splatter of this evening’s meal – he can’t recall what it was – and onto the floor. He runs a hand through sweaty hair and whispers, ‘What’s happened to me?’

  Moving to an armoire near the window, Alen splashes generous handfuls of cold water on his face and feels the familiar sensation as it trickles beneath his tunic to dribble down his back. The cold slaps him awake and he shivers, a genuine shiver rather than the all-too-common drink-shakes that generally visit him in the predawn aven. He pulls off his rank clothes
and considers himself in the glass.

  ‘Fat, you rutter.’ Alen purses his lips disgustedly. ‘How did you get here?’

  He is unaware that a Twinmoon’s travel to the east, Prince Malagon’s flagship is sinking, nor does he realise that a Larion far portal has been opened and that Steven Taylor and the dark prince have both crossed the Fold in search of Lessek’s key. Alen is powerful enough to have detected the brief but powerful battle between Fantus and Nerak only a half aven earlier, but Alen’s senses were dulled, from apathy, alcohol and grief. He stands naked, reflecting on the Twinmoons that have turned him into this reprehensible, out-of-shape creature that stares back at him from the looking-glass.

  Not many people can stand to look at themselves naked for too long: most are too critical, pining for something – more muscle, less paunch, more hair, bigger breasts… Alen’s assessment of himself goes beyond superficial disgust as he delves more deeply into his own cowardice, his grief and his fear.

  Hiding in his specially-designed house where no one in Eldarn can find him, he pines for everything he wanted to do, the leader he wanted to become, and for the things he wanted for his children. Though they had become interesting and engaging adults, and Alen remains proud of them all, there could have been more, if only he had done something: stood his ground, defended the Larion Senate, killed Nerak, and travelled to Durham to find his daughter, Reia. He should have brought her home to assume her place in the Senate; she would have been a powerful sorcerer. His daughter – Pikan’s daughter would have stood toe-to-toe with the world’s most powerful magicians, scholars and leaders, even with Nerak.

  But Alen had not done any of those things. Instead, he had come to Middle Fork to wait, to lose hope and to drink. He had certainly come to do that.

  But this evening something has changed. The pallid whiteness of his flesh has faded to a healthier pink. He can smell again, and feel. His fingers caress the fabric of his bedside cloth: Alen feels himself rejuvenating from within. The cold fear and stolid grief slip away, as if someone has pulled a stopper and allowed his essence to drain out. He is no happier with himself – he isn’t pleased with the bandy arms, the bony legs or the bulging pot-belly hanging over the shrivelled penis he has not used for more than pissing – too often red – for more than five hundred Twinmoons. But this evening, with the stench of his vomit still heavy on the air, Alen senses a change; it skips across his skin and for a moment, the old Larion researcher feels the atrophied member stir between his legs.

  Alen watches his stomach tighten, slimming his figure, as he stands up straight. Dropping the cloth, he brings his hands together, fingertip-to-fingertip, and feels the magic pass. His head clears as he turns away from the glass, intrigued by his regained strength.

  ‘Why tonight?’ he asks. The room is empty, but he knows to whom he has really addressed the question. ‘Why now, you whoring bastard? Why now, when I’m this old, this tired, and a rutting dog-faced drunk?’

  Lessek doesn’t answer, and Alen shifts uneasily towards the armoire, wanting clean clothes. He tries to avoid looking back at the glass, but as he reaches for the cabinet door it’s unavoidable and he is forced to look himself squarely in the face.

  He realises what has happened.

  The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes are not as deep as usual, and the grim creases in his forehead not as pronounced. He quickly dons a clean tunic and hose, mumbling as he does, ‘Can’t be… where would he go?… They haven’t let up in so long…’ Hastily knotting a leather thong at his neck, he picks up the basin and tosses the remaining water across the puddle of vomit. With a thought, he casts a simple spell and watches as the water carries the spoiled vestiges of his dinner away, leaving a spotlessly clean floor in its wake.

  Magic surges through him, and Alen is tempted to let go with a thunderclap, something that will shatter the windows and scare the dog-piss out of his neighbors. But he decides first to experiment, to be absolutely certain the changes that woke him from his stupor are lasting. Grabbing a cloak and a pair of worn leather boots, the former Larion Senator kicks open his chamber door and bellows, Wake up, my friends! It’s time to get going!’

  The old man turns to make eye contact with himself in the glass, flicks his wrist in a simple gesture and barks a hearty chuckle when the mirror shatters; several jagged pieces of polished glass tinkle to the floor.

  ‘They’ve stopped looking for me… Welstar Palace is undefended.’ Slamming the door behind him, Alen shouts, ‘Hoyt! Churn! Hannah! Wake up!’

  SILVERTHORN, COLORADO

  ‘I think I’ll go tomorrow,’ Jennifer Sorenson says, unaware that, a world away, Malakasia’s flagship is shattering into black shards and sinking into Orindale Harbour.

  ‘No, stay the weekend,’ Bryan encourages. ‘They’re predicting fresh snow Thursday night. We’ll ski the powder for a couple of days, and you can drive back to the city on Saturday, or even Sunday if you don’t mind traffic going down the mountain.’

  ‘Please stay,’ Meg adds, ‘and if you don’t want to ski, we’ll go shopping. The antiques shops in town are terrific’

  Jennifer forces a smile, appreciating everything they have done to help her cope with Hannah’s disappearance, but shopping for antiques and skiing in the Rocky Mountains remain low on her list of priorities. ‘Thank you both. I really mean it, but with all the antiques I’ve sold in the past few months, I don’t think I even want to look at another one for a very long time. And Bryan, I just don’t know that I can go up there without-’ Jennifer coughs, covering a sob.

  She has been at her brother’s for the past eight days: reading, writing letters and sharing walks with Bryan and Meg, but she has not been skiing, not one run. She hasn’t even looked up at the mountain; raw emotion is just too near the surface. There has been no news of Hannah since the Idaho Springs police told her the search and rescue efforts underway on Decatur Peak would be suspended until spring. ‘The snow is too deep for an effective search, Mrs Sorenson. I’m sorry,’ the detective had said, coolly, professionally sympathetic. She had not moved as the numb realisation washed over her: Hannah was lost, presumed dead.

  Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, her brother says, ‘I’m sorry, Jenny, I didn’t- But stay anyway. We’ll, I don’t know, cook gourmet food and drink too much expensive wine.’

  ‘No.’ It’s a genuine chuckle this time as she reflects on her brother’s sometimes curious endeavours in the kitchen. She wipes her eyes. ‘Look at me. I’m a mess. You don’t need me hanging around here.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Meg says. ‘It’ll be better here than at home. The store’s finally empty, so you’re spending too much time at the house. Just take a few more days to regroup.’

  They don’t understand.

  ‘There’s no place,’ Jennifer begins falling apart again. ‘There’s no place to hide. There’s no safe place. I can’t get away from her. She’s everywhere. Don’t you see? I can’t stand it. One minute she was there on her bike. I made her put her helmet on as if she was a ten-year-old, and then she was gone. I can’t just sit around waiting until spring for some hiker to-’ Jennifer collapses to the floor; Bryan kneels to take her in his arms.

  ‘Just a few more days,’ he whispers. ‘I’ll go back with you on Sunday, and we can take care of a few things there.’

  ‘No!’ Jennifer shouts. ‘We won’t. I won’t clean out her room. I won’t do it. She is not… she’s not gone, Bryan.’

  ‘Jenny, please.’

  ‘No,’ she shakes her head too hard, causing her vision to tunnel. ‘You tell me how they got to the trailhead, Bryan. How did they get there? All three cars were at the house. Hannah’s climbing gear was at our house. She wore running shoes up there that night. She knew it had snowed.’

  Standing, Jennifer breathes deeply in an effort to calm down; it doesn’t help. ‘I’m sorry, but you climbed with her, Bryan, she wouldn’t go up there in running shoes. She isn’t on that mountain. I won’t believe it, and I won�
��t clean out her room. I won’t cancel her insurance. I won’t take her fucking messages off the answering machine. I’m sorry, but there is nothing like this. This would have been easier if they had just told me she was-’ Jennifer wails, a cry that breaks her brother’s heart.

  ‘Please don’t apologise,’ says Meg. Uncertain what to do with her hands, she alternates between clutching at the crew neck of her sweater and rubbing her palms along the outer seams of her jeans. Feeling useless, she moves into the kitchen for some water.

  Bryan takes his sister by the shoulders as the Prince Marek hoists her broken transom to the Falkan night and begins sinking into the harbour. He takes a breath, bracing himself just enough to say, ‘A few more days, okay?’

  Defeated, Jennifer finally nods. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Great.’ He makes an attempt at levity. ‘What shall we cook? Grilled elephant balls?’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ Jenny can’t stifle a giggle. ‘I’ll rent Casablanca, and we’ll make an evening of it.’ She sees the relief in his face; her heart lightens. Bryan will always be her little brother.

  ‘Make it Victor Victoria; I’m in the mood for a cross-dressing soprano,’ he grins at her.

  ‘I’m afraid Meg will have to help you there, Bryan.’

  ‘Nah, she’s an alto,’ he whispers, and together the siblings laugh, holding one another, waiting for the comforting predictability of everyday life, absent since Hannah’s disappearance, to return.

  BOOK I

  The Keystone

  THE JOURNEY WEST

  The silver charter bus cast a tapered shadow across the concrete wall of the Morrison K-Mart. The sun was coming up behind them, and Steven turned to look out the back window in an effort to see how far above the prairie it had risen. He must have fallen asleep. It had been dark when they left the bus station downtown.