Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

Not seen him in a Moon at least.

Rutter may have gone down with the ship.

Already breaking up. Whole brigades moving out of Orindale, rutting Seron, too.

Generals don’t know whether to shit or scratch.

Glad we’re not them, eh?

Right. What’s drinking?

Across the table, Alen waited, folding and refolding a cloth napkin repeatedly as the soldiers passed, determined not to make eye contact with them. Hannah immediately felt better; perhaps he wasn’t as drunk as he’d appeared.

‘Well, that was interesting,’ she said quietly, once they were out of earshot.

‘Not now,’ Alen cautioned, even more quietly. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

She went back to her previous question. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about Nerak?’

‘Because he is a mean, reprehensible, smelly old fart, and he always has been.’ Alen grinned. Hannah imagined he must have been quite attractive an eternity ago, when he was young.

‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘you two worked together, lived together, built the Larion Senate together… at least tell me about those days, before everything began to unravel.’

Alen shifted in his curious way, adjusting himself and then coming to rest exactly where he had been before. ‘I suppose there were good Twinmoons, but things began to come apart over a very long period of time. There were grim shadows of our future quite early in our time together at Sandcliff; there was a darkness to Nerak from the beginning. Sometimes the pall over him was so thick you felt as though you could peel it off and paste it on a wall if you could get close enough to him.’

‘He was frightening?’

‘No, not at first. In the beginning, he was contagiously enthusiastic, driven unlike any of us. But his lust for power and knowledge coupled with his desire for Pikan drove him mad.’

‘All over a woman?’ Hannah looked askance at him. ‘I find it hard to believe Nerak would allow everything to come apart over the love of one woman.’

‘He didn’t allow everything to come apart. Instead, he pushed too far too quickly. He was well on his way to becoming the greatest sorcerer since Lessek, Lessek’s heir apparent, but he was prone to bouts of anger – well, rage really. He pressed himself too hard, delved too deeply into the spell table. In the end, it consumed him. Would he have done it if Pikan had loved him instead of me? Eventually, yes, I think so – but I also believe he was taken by something hideous because he was in there too frequently and too early in his development as a sorcerer. If Pikan had loved him, he might have made different decisions.’

‘She must have been quite a woman.’

‘She was. Since her death, I’ve lived almost a thousand Twinmoons sequestered in the same house in the same town, never venturing further than it took to buy greenroot, potatoes and pepper weed. I’d say she was quite something.’

Hannah checked the soldiers at the bar were still engrossed in their beers and said, ‘But she didn’t choose him, Alen, she chose you, and that was entirely her choice to make. And no matter how many ways you pick it apart, or how long you hide in the basement blaming yourself, Nerak’s fall from grace was his own doing.’

‘Oh, I don’t disagree with you; it’s just that he had so much to offer. It’s really quite-’

‘Tragic.’

‘Tragic, yes.’

‘Did you never have times when you collaborated and succeeded in reaching the Senate’s common goals?’

‘Absolutely,’ Alen said, ‘many times, especially in the beginning. That may be why we all stayed so long, despite the darkness hidden in Nerak. We were teachers and leaders, but we were magicians, and even though magic was much more common in Eldarn than in Denver, it was not always easy for us to find a niche in Eldarni society. Before the Larion Senate, if you were a magician, you became a healer, an entertainer, sometimes an artist, but never a teacher. It took a long time for people to feel comfortable knowing their children were working with sorcerers.’

‘But your early successes changed some of that?’

‘That’s what made it so special. All over Eldarn people wanted their children to come to Sandcliff to study at the university; we even had waiting lists. Pikan, Nerak and I often travelled together to find those who showed more potential.’

Hannah, caught up in the old man’s tale, poured herself more wine. ‘So students had varying degrees of skill?’

‘Oh yes, we’d get urgent messages from parents convinced their little one was Eldarn’s next Lessek – mostly when some child managed to wilt the flowers on the mantel, or perhaps rolled a few beans around a trencher. We made trips to find the strong ones, the children who blew their grandfather’s barn down with a breath, who lit the dog on fire with a thought, or who lured all the region’s fireflies into the house for reading light.’

Hannah mimicked the mothers she knew: ‘My kid’s gifted. No, my kid’s gifted. Your kid? Stop it. My kid’s gifted.’ She laughed. ‘Is that where you were going when you had the fight?’

The old man’s mood darkened; Hannah was sorry she had asked the question. ‘No. That trip, we were heading for Larion Isle, where we went to work new spells and to document those that were successful. And to protect the rest of Eldarn from those that… well, weren’t successful. No sense holding back now, eh? That trip was the beginning of the end. I know I said that there had been something dark about Nerak, but that was when we should have realised that the Larion Senate was doomed as long as Nerak had access to Lessek’s key.’

‘I thought the fight was over Pikan,’ Hannah said.

‘It was. The initial confrontation was two lovesick fools fighting over a woman. Can you believe it? And he could have killed me. I know he wanted to, but his love for her stopped him, I’m sure of it. Nerak knew she would have been crushed if he had killed me, so I came out of it with a nasty ankle injury and a sorely bruised sense of my own abilities as a sorcerer. It ruined the trip to Larion Isle. I’d always enjoyed those journeys, because Pikan and Nerak led the magicians and I went just as a researcher – and because it was a great boat trip.’ He finished the wine and started in on the water. ‘This tastes dreadful. Do you want some tecan?’

‘I’d love some, sure. Do we have enough money? I know it’s a bad time to ask now that we’ve eaten the most expensive meal in the place, but how are we holding up?’

‘I haven’t been out in nearly a thousand Twinmoons, Hannah.’ He gestured for the barman. ‘We have plenty.’

‘Good. Then, yes, please. It will help clear my head.’

‘So where was I? Oh, yes, the fight: I hurt my ankle and lied to everyone that I did it getting off the ship. He wasn’t telling anyone the truth, so I let it go as well, but he began to pick at me. First, he insisted on climbing the highest mountains on the island just to run the tests. Pikan always went along, because someone had to keep the records. That would have been my role, but I couldn’t get there. Then there were the walking sticks I cut. I must have cut myself five or six, and most of them were burned when it was his turn to set the campfire. He knew they were my crutches, but he cut them up and tossed them in the flames just to be irritating. Some mornings I would wake to find my sticks on the other side of my room, or out in the common room.’

‘That sounds awfully childish, Alen, especially for someone who took himself so seriously.’

‘Love makes fools of us all, Hannah. If you haven’t discovered that, yet, be patient; you will.’

Hannah thought back to her drive up the canyon from Denver to Idaho Springs to look for Steven. Part of her had gone to confront him; if he wanted their relationship to end, he needed to say so. She supposed a part of her had gone because she was genuinely worried something might have happened to him or to Mark, but Hannah knew in her heart that she had driven up the canyon, broken into the house and fallen victim to the ugly rug because she had been falling in love with Steven Taylor. And she had not wanted to be the only one – if her heart was going to break, Hannah wanted it to be on her terms, not at 4.30 a.m. along some freezing cold trail beneath Decatur Peak. ‘Perhaps I have already,’ she murmured.