Without a window, the room wasn’t as noisy as Abby had feared it might be. The door had no bolt, but the woman who kept the house had said in a mumble for her not to fret, that no men were allowed in the establishment. Abby set the bread aside and, at a basin atop a simple stand two strides across the room, washed her face. She was surprised at how dirty it left the water.
She twisted the lever stem on the lamp, lowering the wick as far as it would go without snuffing the flame; she didn’t like sleeping in the dark in a strange place. Lying in bed, staring up at the water-stained ceiling, she prayed earnestly to the good spirits, despite knowing that they would ignore a request such as she made. She closed her eyes and prayed for Wizard Zorander’s daughter, too. Her prayers were fragmented by intruding fears that felt as if they clawed her insides raw.
She didn’t know how long she had lain in the bed, wishing for sleep to take her, wishing for morning to come, when the door slowly squeaked open. A shadow climbed the far wall.
Abby froze, eyes wide, breath held tight, as she watched a crouched figure move towards the bed. It wasn’t the woman of the house. She would be taller. Abby’s fingers tightened on the scratchy blanket, thinking that maybe she could throw it over the intruder and then run for the door.
‘Don’t be alarmed, dearie. I’ve just come to see if you had success up at the Keep.’
Abby gulped air and sat up in the bed. ‘Mariska?’ It was the old woman who had waited with her in the line all day. ‘You frightened the wits out of me!’
The small flame from the lamp reflected in a sharp shimmer in the woman’s eye as she surveyed Abby’s face. ‘Worse things to fear than your own safety.’
‘What do you mean?’
Mariska smiled. It was not a reassuring smile. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’
I saw the First Wizard, if that’s what you mean.’
‘And what did he say, dearie?’
Abby swung her feet down off the bed. ‘That’s my business.’
The sly smile widened. ‘Oh, no, dearie, it’s our business.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Answer the question. You’ve not much time left. Your family has not much time left.’
Abby shot to her feet. ‘How do you—’
The old woman seized Abby’s wrist and twisted until Abby was forced to sit. ‘What say the First Wizard?’
‘He said he couldn’t help me. Please, that hurts. Let me go.’
‘Oh, dearie, that’s too bad, it is. Too bad for your little Jana.’
‘How … how do you know about her? I never—’
‘So, Wizard Zorander denied your petition. Such sad news.’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Poor, unfortunate, little Jana. You were warned. You knew the price of failure.’
She released Abby’s wrist and turned away. Abby’s mind raced in hot panic as the woman shuffled towards the door. ‘No! Please! I’m to see him again, tomorrow. At sunrise.’
Mariska peered back over her shoulder. ‘Why? Why would he agree to see you again, after he has denied you? Lying will buy your daughter no more time. It will buy her nothing.’
‘It’s true. I swear it on my mother’s soul. I talked to the sorceress, the one who took us in. I talked to her and the Mother Confessor, after Wizard Zorander denied my petition. They agreed to convince him to give me a private audience.’
Her brow bunched. ‘Why would they do this?’
Abby pointed to her sack sitting on the end of the bed. ‘I showed them what I brought.’
With one gnarled finger, Mariska lifted open the sack. She looked for a moment and then glided closer to Abby. ‘You have yet to show this to Wizard Zorander?’
‘That’s right. They will get me an audience with him. I’m sure of it. Tomorrow, he will see me.’
From her bulky waistband, Mariska drew a knife. She waved it slowly back and forth before Abby’s face, ‘We grow weary of waiting for you.’ Abby licked her lips. ‘But I—’
‘In the morning I leave for Coney Crossing. I leave to see your frightened little Jana.’ Her hand slid behind Abby’s neck. Fingers like oak roots gripped Abby’s hair, holding her head fast. ‘If you bring him right behind me, she will go free, as you were promised.’
Abby couldn’t nod. I will. I swear. I’ll convince him. He is bound by a debt.’
Mariska put the point of the knife so close to Abby’s eye that it brushed her eyelashes. Abby feared to blink.
‘Arrive late, and I will stab my knife in little Jana’s eye. Stab it through. I will leave her the other so that she can watch as I cut out her father’s heart, just so that she will know how much it will hurt when I do her. Do you understand, dearie?’
Abby could only whine that she did, as tears streamed down her cheeks.
‘There’s a good girl,’ Mariska whispered from so close that Abby was forced to breathe the spicy stink of the woman’s sausage dinner. ‘If we even suspect any tricks, they will all die.’
‘No tricks. I’ll hurry. I’ll bring him.’
Mariska kissed Abby’s forehead. ‘You’re a good mother.’ She released
Abby’s hair. ‘Jana loves you. She cries for you day and night.’
After Mariska closed the door, Abby curled into a trembling ball in the bed and wept against her knuckles.
*
Delora leaned closer as they marched across the broad rampart. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Abigail?’
Wind snatched at her hair, flicking it across her face. Brushing it from her eyes, Abby looked out at the sprawl of the city below beginning to coalesce out of the gloom. She had been saying a silent prayer to her mother’s spirit.
‘Yes. I just had a bad night. I couldn’t sleep.’
The Mother Confessor’s shoulder pressed against Abby’s from the other side.
‘We understand. At least he agreed to see you. Take heart in that. He’s a good man, he really is.’
‘Thank you,’ Abby whispered in shame. ‘Thank you both for helping me.’ The people waiting along the rampart – wizards, sorceresses, officers, and others – all momentarily fell silent and bowed towards the Mother Confessor as the three women passed. Among several people she recognized from the day before, Abby saw the wizard Thomas, grumbling to himself and looking hugely impatient and vexed as he shuffled through a handful of papers covered in what Abby recognized as magical symbols.
At the far end of the rampart they came to the stone face of a round turret. The eyebrow where the soffit met the edge of a steep, slate tile roof protruded out over a low, round-topped door. The sorceress rapped her knuckles briefly, then lifted the lever and opened the door without bothering to wait for a reply. She caught the twitch of Abby’s brow.
‘He rarely hears the knock,’ she explained in a hushed tone.
The secluded room held a wealth of treasures. Shelves were crammed tight here and there with jars, jugs, and coloured glass vessels holding what Abby imagined had to be strange substances. A variety of small, ornate boxes sitting in corners and up high hid from view what had to be secrets. Weighty books stacked everywhere hinted at obscure knowledge. The spines of the books were gilded not only with rich designs, but words in exotic languages. Corner cases with glassed doors held some of the tomes, along with a few oddly shaped items embellished with strange designs.
The finely-fit stone of the walls and heavy oak beams imparted a cozy feel. A round window to Abby’s right overlooked the city below and another on the opposite side looked up on soaring walls of the Keep. The highest walls in the distance glowed pink in the first faint rays of dawn. An elaborate iron candelabrum held a small army of candles that provided a warm glow to the room.
Wizard Zorander, his unruly wavy brown hair hanging down around his face as he leaned on his hands, was absorbed in studying a book lying open before him. The magnificent desk, its top polished to a mirror finish, was banded all around with ornate carving. More pronounced carvings on a heavy, straight-back oak chair behind the wi
zard glistened in the candlelight. On a chest to the side sat a pewter mug and a plat littered with the remains of a long-finished meal.
‘Wizard Zorander,’ the sorceress announced, ‘we bring Abigail, born of Helsa.’
‘Bags, woman,’ the wizard grouched without looking up, ‘I heard your knock, as I always do.’
‘Don’t you curse at me, Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander,’ Delora grumbled back.
He ignored the sorceress, rubbing his smooth chin as he considered the book before him. ‘Welcome, Abigail.’
Abby’s fingers fumbled at the sack. But then she remembered herself and curtsied. ‘Thank you for seeing me, Wizard Zorander. It is of vital importance that I have your help. As I’ve already told you, the lives of innocent children are at stake.’
Wizard Zorander finally peered up. After appraising her a long moment he straightened. ‘Where does the line lie?’
Abby glanced to the sorceress on one side of her and then the Mother Confessor on the other side. Neither looked back.
‘Excuse me, Wizard Zorander? The line?’
The wizard’s brow drew down. ‘You imply a higher value to a life because of a young age. The line, my dear child, across which the value of life becomes petty. Where is the line?’
‘But a child—’
He held up a cautionary finger. ‘Do not think to play on my emotions by plying me with the value of the life of a child, as if a higher value can be placed on life because of age. When is life worth less? Where is the line? At what age? Who decides?
‘All life is of value. Dead is dead, no matter the age. Don’t think to produce a suspension of my reason with a callous, calculated twisting of emotion, like some slippery officeholder stirring the passions of a mindless mob.’
Abby was struck speechless by such an admonition. The wizard turned his attention to the Mother Confessor.
‘Speaking of bureaucrats, what did the council have to say for themselves?’
The Mother Confessor clasped her hands and sighed. ‘I told them your words. Simply put, they didn’t care. They want it done.’
He grunted his discontent. ‘Do they, now?’ His hazel eyes turned to Abby. ‘Seems the council doesn’t care about the lives of even children, when the children are D’Haran.’ He wiped a hand across his tired-looking eyes. ‘I can’t say I don’t comprehend their reasoning, or that I disagree with them, but dear spirits, they are not the ones to do it. It is not by their hand. It will be by mine.’
‘I understand, Zedd,’ the Mother Confessor murmured.
Once again he seemed to notice Abby standing before him. He considered her as if pondering some profound notion. It made her fidget. He held out his hand and waggled his fingers. ‘Let me see it, then.’
Abby stepped closer to the table as she reached in her sack.
‘If you cannot be persuaded to help innocent people, then maybe this will mean something more to you.’
She drew her mother’s skull from the sack and placed it in the wizard’s upturned palm. ‘It is a debt of bones. I declare it due.’
One eyebrow lifted. ‘It is customary to bring only a tiny fragment of bone, child.’
Abby felt her face flush. ‘I didn’t know,’ she stammered. ‘I wanted to be sure there was enough to test... to be sure you would believe me.’
He smoothed a gentle hand over the top of the skull. ‘A piece smaller than a grain of sand is enough.’ He watched Abby’s eyes. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you?’
Abby shook her head. ‘She said only that it was a debt passed to you from your father. She said the debt must be paid if it was called due.’
‘Indeed it must,’ he whispered.
Zedd pulled his heavy chair forward and sat at his desk to examine Abby’s terrible treasury. She watched with bated breath as his hand glided back and forth over her mother’s skull. The bone was dull and stained by the dirt from which Abby had pulled it, not at all the pristine white she had fancied it would be. It had horrified her to have to uncover her mother’s bones, but the alternative horrified her more.
Beneath the wizard’s fingers, the hone of the skull began to glow with soft amber light. Abby’s breathing nearly stilled when the air hummed, as if the spirits themselves whispered to the wizard. The sorceress fussed with the beads at her neck. The Mother Confessor chewed her lower lip. Abby prayed.
Wizard Zorander set the skull on the table and turned his back on them. The amber glow faded away.
When he said nothing, Abby spoke into the thick silence. ‘Well? Are you satisfied? Did your test prove it a debt true?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said quietly without turning towards them. ‘It is a debt of bones true, bound by the magic invoked until the debt is paid.’
Abby’s fingers worried at the frayed edge of her sack. ‘I told you. My mother wouldn’t have lied to me. She told me that if not paid while she was alive, it became a debt of bones upon her death.’
The wizard slowly rounded to face her. ‘And did she tell you anything of the engendering of the debt?’
‘No.’ Abby cast a furtive, sidelong glance at Delora before going on. ‘Sorceresses hold secrets close, and reveal only that which serves their purposes.’
With a slight, fleeting smile, he grunted his concurrence.
‘She said only that it was your father and she who were bound in it, and that until paid it would continue to pass on to the descendants of each.’
‘Your mother spoke the truth. But that does not mean that it must be paid now.’
‘It is a solemn debt of bones.’ Abby’s frustration and fear erupted with venom. ‘I declare it due! You will yield to the obligation!’
Both the sorceress and the Mother Confessor gazed off at the walls, uneasy at a woman, an ungifted woman, raising her voice to the First Wizard himself. Abby suddenly wondered if she might be struck dead for such insolence. But if he didn’t help her, it wouldn’t matter.
The Mother Confessor diverted the possible results of Abby’s outburst with a question. ‘Zedd, did your reading tell you of the nature of the engendering of the debt?’
‘Indeed it did,’ he said. ‘My father, too, told me of a debt. My test has proven to me that this is the one of which he spoke, and that the woman standing before me carries the other half of the link.’
‘So, what was the engendering?’ the sorceress asked.
He turned his palms up. ‘It seems to have slipped my mind. I’m sorry; I find myself to be more forgetful than usual of late.’
Delora sniffed. ‘And you dare to call sorceresses taciturn?’
Wizard Zorander silently considered her a moment and then turned a squint on the Mother Confessor. ‘The council wants it done, do they?’ He smiled a sly smile. ‘Then it shall be done.’
The Mother Confessor cocked her head. ‘Zedd... are you sure about this?’
‘About what?’ Abby asked. ‘Are you going to honour the debt or not?’
The wizard shrugged. ‘You have declared the debt due.’ He plucked a small book from the table and slipped it into a pocket in his robe. ‘Who am I to argue?’
‘Dear spirits,’ the Mother Confessor whispered to herself. ‘Zedd, just because the council—’
‘I am just a wizard,’ he said, cutting her off, ‘serving the wants and wishes of the people.’
‘But if you travel to this place you would be exposing yourself to needless danger.’
‘I must be near the border – or it will claim parts of the Midlands, too. Coney Crossing is as good a place as any other to ignite the conflagration.’
Beside herself with relief, Abby was hardly hearing anything else he said.
‘Thank you, Wizard Zorander. Thank you.’
He strode around the table and gripped her shoulder with sticklike fingers of surprising strength.
‘We are bound, you and I, in a debt of bones. Our life paths have intersected.’ His smile looked at once sad and sincere. His powerful ringers closed around her wrist, around her bracelet, and he pu
t her mother’s skull in her hands. ‘Please, Abby, call me Zedd.’
Near tears, she nodded. ‘Thank you, Zedd.’
Outside, in the early light, they were accosted by the waiting crowd. Wizard Thomas, waving his papers, shoved his way through.
‘Zorander! I’ve been studying these elements you’ve provided. I have to talk to you.’
‘Talk, then,’ the First Wizard said as he marched by. The crowd followed in his wake.
‘This is madness.’
‘I never said it wasn’t.’
Wizard Thomas shook the papers as if for proof. ‘You can’t do this, Zorander!’
‘The council has decided that it is to be done. The war must be ended while we have the upper hand and before Panis Rahl comes up with something we won’t be able to counter.’
‘No, I mean I’ve studied this thing, and you won’t be able to do it. We don’t understand the power those wizards wielded. I’ve looked over the elements you’ve shown me. Even trying to invoke such a thing will create intense heat.’
Zedd halted and put his face close to Thomas. He lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. ‘Really, Thomas? Do you think? Igniting a light spell that will rip the fabric of the world of life might cause an instability in the elements of the web field?’
Thomas charged after as Zedd stormed off. ‘Zorander! You won’t be able to control it! If you were able to invoke it – and I’m not saying I believe you can – you would breach the Grace. The invocation uses heat. The breach feeds it. You won’t be able to control the cascade. No one can do such a thing!’
‘I can do it,’ the First Wizard muttered.
Thomas shook the fists of papers in a fury. ‘Zorander, your arrogance will be the end of us all! Once parted, the veil will be rent and all life will be consumed. I demand to see the book in which you found this spell. I demand to see it myself. The whole thing, not just parts of it!’
The First Wizard paused and lifted a finger. Thomas, if you were meant to see the book, then you would be First Wizard and have access to the First Wizard’s private enclave. But you are not, and you don’t.’