Lessek's Key

IDAHO SPRINGS

Steven pulled the cap down over his ears and wrapped his face and neck in the scarf. Bright sunshine and dry mountain air gave the illusion of unseasonable warmth, and to passersby the hat-and-scarf combination might look a bit excessive, but he had to ensure he was not recognised by anyone. The bus had dropped him off, the only passenger exiting in Idaho Springs, on the east side of town, and there was no way to avoid using main roads.

With nine blocks to go, he crossed a road to avoid a family dressed in matching ski-jackets, then, anticipating a straight shot home through the relatively quiet residential part of town, he nearly ran over Mrs Winter, the elderly woman who owned the pastry shop next to the bank.

‘Oh, geez. Sorry, Mrs W,’ Steven said before he could stop himself, grabbing the surprised older woman by the shoulders in a clumsy effort to keep her from falling to the snowy sidewalk.

Thankfully, Mrs Winter didn’t hear very well. ‘You should watch where you’re going young man,’ she scolded, but Steven was already hurrying away at a run. ‘Young man!’ Mrs Winter cried at his back, ‘young man, that was very rude of you!’

‘Sorry, Mrs W,’ Steven murmured to himself as he paused to catch his breath. He looked up the hillside to where Oh My Gawd Road ran, hundreds of feet above the floor of Virginia Canyon. It was named for the reaction of most travellers: Oh My Gawd Road was still dirt for much of its length, and there were no barriers along the circuitous route to the old mining town of Central City. He and Mark had cycled it once; Steven remembered fondly Mark groaning his displeasure at the gruelling climb to eleven thousand feet. ‘Just for the record,’ he’d rattled through shallow gulps of thin air, ‘I think this form of travel sucks. Next time, we’re taking the bus or a plane or a frigging space shuttle; I don’t care.’

Steven smiled at the irony: if only his roommate had known that day the various forms of travel he would be using in the coming months, he might have allowed himself to enjoy the bike trip. Who knew the pair would be travelling across the Fold, whatever that was, on horseback through the coastal forests of Rona to Seer’s Peak, on foot through the Blackstones, and then drifting through Meyers’ Vale on the Capina Fair?.

He grinned. One day he would drag Mark back up that canyon and into Central City to celebrate with a night at the tables, the city’s main attraction. As his thoughts drifted, he slowed to a distracted walk. Something was tickling at the back of his mind: something was wrong. Travel. What about travel? He turned and stared back up Virginia Street. Mrs Winter was gone, most likely sweeping the snow from the steps in front of her shop by now. Travel. He had travelled; he had come a great distance, though he had no idea how far he was from Eldarn now – a million miles? A few inches?

That wasn’t it, it wasn’t Eldarn. It was South Carolina: he had come from South Carolina and the trip, without real sleep and only a few stops for gas and food, had been as gruelling a journey as the bike ride through Virginia Canyon last July.

What was it? Steven unwrapped the scarf from around his face and drew his first unfiltered breath of Idaho Springs air.

The Larion far portal in his house was closed. Steven stopped dead. He had been so distracted by events at the airport, and hurrying so fast across the United States that he hadn’t thought about where he had arrived: the far portal had to be closed, otherwise he would have come from Eldarn straight to his living room. Someone – and much as he hated the idea, he had to accept it was someone after Hannah, as she was obviously there now – but someone had come into his house and closed the portal. Who would that have been? Her mother, Jennifer? But there had been a pile of unread newspapers on her front lawn; maybe Jennifer Sorenson was in Eldarn too?

But someone had been in 147 Tenth Street after Hannah, because someone had closed the portal, probably by folding up the tapestry. The police? Investigators would have been called, he guessed, maybe several days after the roommates’ disappearance: one of them might have inadvertently closed the portal. Even worse, what if they’d detected the tapestry’s power and taken it away, shipped it to Washington, DC, or to some research facility in Boulder?

He started to run again, breaking out into a cold sweat. Ignoring the chance he might be seen, he pulled the watch-cap from his head and ran a hand through his hair to free the matted strands.

And there it was: 147 Tenth Street – and what Steven saw was far worse than his most hopeless nightmares. The portal had not been taken by the Idaho Springs Police; it had not been checked into evidence and locked in a room in the town hall basement, or shipped to DC, or even sealed in a container and hidden far below ground level in a subterranean basement of a top secret radiation centre in Nevada.

This was worse. Standing on the icy sidewalk in front of 147 Tenth Street, Steven was struck dumb, completely devoid of any idea as to what he should do now.

His house, the small yard at the back, the two-car garage and the fence separating 147 from Dave and Cindy’s place next door were gone.

‘Oh, great pissing demons, Churn, it’s not that high up.’ An exasperated Hoyt patted Churn’s saddle encouragingly.

Churn replied with a series of tentative hand gestures, embarrassment clearly evident in his face.

‘Do you expect us to walk all the way to Welstar Palace?’

With no trace of humour, the burly mute nodded.

‘No,’ Hoyt said, ‘you are getting up there and you are going to ride this horse. Churn, I have seen you overcome obstacles that would kill any normal person. You can’t tell me that riding a horse is going to get the better of you. You, the man who took six Malakasian guards outside that arms warehouse… alone… you are going to give in to a child’s fear of – of what? Heights? Big animals?’

‘Heights,’ Churn signed. ‘And it was seven guards.’ The Pragan rebel tugged distractedly at a leather strap hanging from the open neck of his tunic.

‘There you have it, seven,’ Hoyt said, ‘fixed their rutting hides with your bare hands. This horse should be a red cinch. Now, chop chop, let’s ride.’

No. I’ll walk.’

‘What is it?’ Hannah asked. ‘Is he afraid of horses?’

Hoyt turned to her with a frustrated grimace and said, No. Not anything that complicated. Our intimidating hulk of walking granite here is afraid of high places. High places! Can you believe it? He’ll take on the entire Malakasian Army by himself while suffering a head cold and holding a frothy tankard in one hairy paw, but he won’t look out the upstairs window of his own house.’

‘Vertigo,’ Hannah said. ‘I understand it can be crippling.’

‘I don’t know what that word means, ver-’

‘Vertigo.’

Vertigo.’ Hoyt nodded. ‘Well, if it means high places turn him into a whining, wet-nosed infant, then you’re dead on with your diagnosis.’

‘It’s a serious condition, Hoyt and you, as a healer, should know that.’ Hannah glanced at Churn, who nodded his agreement.

‘Oh, stop it, Hannah,’ Hoyt argued, ‘it’s a long way from his vital organs, knocking around in that cavernous tank he calls a brain. And if it’s so crippling, how is he able to run and jump from rooftop to rooftop when we’re dodging arrows and other Malakasian toys?’

‘We’re only up there at night,’ Churn signed. ‘I don’t see down.’

‘You are a god-rutting cat up there,’ Hoyt said crossly.

When running for my life – I don’t think about it. This is different. I’ll be up there looking down at everything all day – it’s just too high, Hoyt. I can’t do it.’ Churn’s hand moved with fluid grace in the longest monologue Hannah had yet heard from the silent giant.

‘So if we’re riding for our lives, you won’t mind being in the saddle?’ Hoyt pressed. ‘But out for a pleasant morning canter, a nice jaunt through the forest and up over the hills into Malakasia, you won’t go, because the horse is too tall? Gods rest us; I need to find a shorter horse.’

‘It’s not the horse. It is that my feet won’t be on the ground – and I will have time to think about it.’

Hoyt shook his head. ‘So, I need to find an exceedingly short horse, one short enough for your feet to drag? That won’t slow us down a bit, Churn. Nah, we’ll be at Welstar Palace in no time… thirty-five Twinmoons from now! We could crawl there faster.’

‘I’m not getting on the rutting horse!’

‘All right! All right. No need to yell!’

Hannah grinned at the interchange. ‘Maybe we can-’

Hoyt interrupted, mumbling to himself, ‘Whole idea is bad… Malakasia… get ourselves killed… take a lot longer dragging… Alen is going to be furious-’

Hannah touched the wiry Pragan on the shoulder. ‘I have an idea.’ They were standing outside a small mercantile shop at a crossroads northwest of Middle Fork, a place too small to have a name, but where the purchase of four horses and saddlery would not arouse suspicion or start any unwanted rumours. It had taken a day, and a good deal of careful questioning and monetary encouragement before the locals cooperated, but the two thieves had finally located a horse farm willing to deal. Now Alen was inside the mercantile, gathering supplies they would need for their journey into Malakasia.

For three days they had walked north and west, leaving Alen Jasper’s home in the pre-dawn aven and before most of Middle Fork was awake. Alen had shouted until the others roused themselves, insisting they pack just what they could carry and leave immediately: Nerak was gone and Welstar Palace was undefended.

Hannah was certain the former Larion Senator had originally planned to take her to Welstar Palace so that he might commit an elaborate suicide at the hands of his former nemesis; now she had no idea what was happening, if sending her home to Colorado was even an option. And she had not yet summoned up the courage to ask. Hoyt said the trip north would take them well into the next Twinmoon, so Hannah figured that with at least sixty days at her disposal, she had time to persuade him.

She had been so worried about the old man’s health: Alen drank far too much – she was worried sick that one day she would find him lying dead beside a pile of empty bottles. Though she doubted Alen’s ability to get her home, she’d never doubted his willingness to make the effort. We shall both get what we want, Hannah Sorenson: she recalled the eerie voice through the locked door of her bedchamber. His English was flawless. He had obviously been across the Fold or through the Fold or whatever it was she had done to get to Eldarn from Colorado.

And he had changed, sobered up in a moment – with a little help from Churn and a trough of cold water – after he met her. It had obviously been a significant moment in the old man’s life, meeting her, and even though his mystical resources had obviously not been taken off the shelf in years, discovering that someone other than Nerak controlled the Colorado end of the Larion far portals had made a marked impression. So Hannah had believed that Alen – or Kantu, as he insisted on being called when he was drunk – was committed to finding and using the Malakasian version of the ugly carpet that had dropped her in Southport.

Now Hannah was no longer sure what he was planning. Everything had gone by her in a blur that morning, from hearing him yelling to grabbing her few clothes and hurriedly stuffing bread, cheese and wineskins into a bag.

Even Alen’s home remained an enigma. The many hallways, rooms and fireplaces seemed to exist only inside, while outside, a single chimney jutted from the roof of the small structure visible from the street. Hannah had been perplexed by the way the house, whether blocked by the rising or setting sun, obscured by surrounding buildings or draped in fog, was nearly impossible to see clearly. She had it fixed in her head – though not without some difficulty, for even in her imagination the shape was fluid – that the place was tiny, unexceptional… but inside, it was massive, with twisting hallways, rooms off rooms off rooms, and staircases leading upwards and down at random intervals. Fires burned merrily in fireplaces all over the place.

As they left quietly, unobtrusively, Hannah turned briefly – but the house was different, no longer the unassuming little building Hannah usually saw. Now Alen’s house looked like something out of a gothic horror novel, a meandering mansion several storeys high, with exposed beams and mortar walls set with latticed windows and heavy oak doors. On the roof, the single chimney had been joined by a bevy of smokestacks. Hannah almost expected clouds of dark smoke to start billowing skywards.

‘How is that possible?’ she whispered, hefting her bag onto her shoulder. ‘What the hell is happening?’

‘I had to remain hidden,’ Alen said, hearing her. ‘Fantus, my friend and colleague, took on strange professions and hobbies to obscure himself from Nerak’s view. He avoided magic so Nerak could not pinpoint his location. Me? I hid right here, right where I was when I heard… well, when I heard that the world had ended.’

‘Nerak looked for you all this time?’

‘No. Nerak knew my magic posed little threat. He was more interested in Fantus.’

‘So why the camouflaged home?’

‘There are others in Welstar Palace, Hannah.’

‘Other what?’

‘Magicians. Sorcerers. The sort of talented young people Pikan and Nerak sought throughout Eldarn to recruit for the Larion Senate. In the old days they would have been brought to Sandcliff to study.’ Alen turned away from the house and set off down the road.

Hannah scurried to catch up with him. ‘But with Sandcliff overrun-’ she began.

‘Nerak brought them to Welstar Palace and started them on a variety of unsavoury undertakings. One of their tasks was to find me. It was fairly simple to mask my comings and goings, especially this far away, but inside this house, I could relax, turn things off for a while.’

‘Good Christ. All this time?’

‘All this time, Hannah, but this morning, right now, they have stopped seeking me. So it will probably terrify the people of Middle Fork, but I am releasing my old house – and I do love this house – to stand here in all her British glory. You know, they’ll probably think it cursed and burn it down.’ Alen looked back at her for a moment. ‘Come. Let’s get going.’

Hannah ignored his order. ‘That’s right. You said you had been in

… where was it?’

‘Durham,’ Alen answered, without emotion. ‘It’s where we left Reia.’

‘What do you mean by stopped?’ Hannah asked. ‘How do you know?’

With a sigh, Alen said, ‘I can feel it. Actually, I can’t feel it.’

‘It?’

‘It – them – looking for me. They’ve kept it up eight avens a day, sixty days a Twinmoon, for the past nine hundred Twinmoons. About an aven ago, they stopped, and I haven’t felt anything from Nerak himself since last Twinmoon.’

‘Felt him?’ Hannah jogged to catch up with Alen again.

‘Not too long ago, the Malakasian city of Port Denis was wiped away, levelled. I couldn’t see it as clearly as I might have before I started dri- well, you know… but I don’t believe he left anyone alive.’

‘And you are able to feel that? See it? How do you know it was that particular city?’ Hannah asked.

‘It was bigger than most spells. Magic ripples through existence, usually tightening skin into gooseflesh or tickling the hairs on the back of one’s neck. It’s easy to detect, and with training, one can use those warnings to follow them back to their point of origin.’ Alen stopped and faced her; Hannah glimpsed Hoyt and Churn in the distance as they disappeared around a corner.

‘So, the Port Denis spell was-’ She was fascinated and horrified at the same time.

‘Like getting hit in the stomach with a log.’ He considered this analogy for a moment, then added, ‘I felt it in my bone marrow, like a disease that strikes in an instant, every symptom, every pain, all condensed into one blast, and then passes just as quickly as it came. You might live for a long time afterwards, but those few moments will stay with you for ever.

‘But now the sun is coming up. We need to get away from here before the locals discover that they can’t quite remember what my house used to look like.’ And with that, Alen of Middle Fork hiked his pack higher on his back and left his home of over nine hundred Twinmoons without a second glance.

Hannah followed, oblivious to the large dog, a wolfhound, maybe, that slipped out of the shadows and kept pace behind her as she trudged through the Middle Fork mud.

Hannah was about to lose her temper. Alen was still inside the store, and it was beginning to look as if Hoyt and Churn were going to sort out Churn’s phobia in an unpleasantly physical fashion.

She started to pound Hoyt’s back, shouting ‘Shut up, shut upl’ until, in surprise, the two men fell silent.

‘Thank you,’ she said grimly. ‘You’re worse than bloody children! Now, listen: I’ve had an idea.’

‘That we club him over the head and strap him to the saddle like a late-autumn deer?’ Hoyt muttered. ‘Excellent notion, Hannah, very creative. I agree wholeheartedly.’ Hoyt grinned then, and winked at Churn, who signed something he obviously didn’t feel comfortable translating.

‘I said shut up and listen,’ Hannah said firmly. ‘Hand me that axe.’

Ah, even better,’ Hoyt said as he tugged the weapon from Churn’s saddlebag and passed it over. ‘Let’s just cut his head off. And you need not worry about getting messy. I’ll carry it in my bag.’

Churn cuffed Hoyt on the back of his head, nearly knocking him to the ground.

‘Rutting lords,’ Hoyt protested, ‘not so hard.’

Hannah glared and the two of them looked chastened. ‘Sadly, it’s nothing that grisly – although I could always change my mind. I’ll be right back.’

As she walked off into the woods behind the mercantile, Alen came out carrying several bulky canvas bags. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘divide this lot between the horses. If we run out of room, let me know and I’ll take care of it.’

‘Right,’ Churn signed and moved off towards the tree they had been using as a hitching post.

Hoyt turned to Alen. ‘You know we can’t travel north along the road; we’ll have to go through the forest.’

‘Have you used that route before?’ Alen asked.

Hoyt had travelled to many places, and had seen more strange and wonderful things than most people imagined existed. Work and study had taken him to the distant corners of Eldarn: he had run, crawled, or fought his way out of trouble in as many cities in the Eastlands as any Ronan or Falkan partisan – but he had never travelled through the forest of ghosts. He had always believed that he would have to be fleeing for his life before he entered those enchanted woods. He sighed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I haven’t. I hear it’s terrible. I guess I’m about to find out?’

‘It can be,’ Alen said unhelpfully, ‘but there are some who pass through with no trouble at all.’ He didn’t sound convinced that their passage would be easy. He looked around and shrugged. ‘You’re right, of course, we can’t use this road, and if we try any of the mountain routes we’ll certainly encounter border guards.’

And I would just as soon not have to fight our way into Malakasia – bad enough we’ll most likely have to fight our way out once we get there.’

And if we do get away, we will need to find a place to-’

Hoyt interrupted, ‘If we do get away, we will need to come up with a good story as to why we went in at all, because we both know creeping around under cover of darkness is something people do to get out of Welstar Palace, not in. If we get back to Southport alive, Branag and the boys’ll never let me forget this one. A bad idea, my old friend, this is a very bad idea.’

‘You’ll be fine; I’m certain of it.’

And you? And Hannah and Churn?’ Hoyt asked.

‘If we do things right, we’ll all get what we need from this journey,’ Alen said reassuringly.

‘That’s cryptic. Am I supposed to be just fine with the idea that you want to kill yourself?’ Hoyt asked. ‘Still thinking you lived too long?’

‘I have lived too long, Hoyt, let there be no mistake about that, and I will welcome death when it comes looking for me. But if Nerak is gone from Welstar Palace and his magicians have stopped their search for me, I would like a chance to get in there and – while sending Hannah home – disturb things a bit.’

‘ Disturb? Odd choice of words.’

‘It’s the best I can come up with.’ Though he sounded lighthearted, Hoyt recognised that he was deadly serious. ‘Nerak has a team of magicians in there, powerful magicians, who would – should – have been Larion Senators. I want them dead. They have been serving evil for so long, and if I have a chance to break down their operation, I will.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘There was something else after that, wasn’t there? Something you left out?’

‘He has a daughter too.’ Anger washed over Alen’s face, masking for a moment his pain, loneliness and loss. ‘I have waited my whole life for this.’

‘Have you?’ Hoyt pressed. ‘I thought you never killed yourself because Lessek wouldn’t let you.’

‘Perhaps. And your point?’

‘You think this is why he forced you to keep living all this time – to go to Welstar Palace and kill Malagon’s daughter?’

‘No-’ Alen started, but stopped as Hannah appeared with a solid length of wood in one hand and Churn’s axe in the other.

She smiled at them. ‘My idea: If Churn sits in the saddle and uses this stick to keep in contact with the ground… well, maybe he won’t struggle so much with the height.’ Neither man answered; worry creased Hannah’s forehead. ‘What is it?’ she asked anxiously.

Alen looked at Hoyt, his countenance grim, and finished his sentence. No. There is something else.’

‘What was that?’ Hannah joined them ‘Is something wrong?’

Hoyt smiled at her. No, no. Things are fine and I bet you’re right. If we can get that hulking tree-trunk in the saddle without killing him or his horse, I bet this stick idea will work.’