“I’ll be fine,” Falk assured him. “I may not have a warmcoat like the one your wife gave you, but I can shield myself. But thank you for your concern.” He grinned. “Anyway, Robinton, we’ll all be warm soon enough, won’t we?”
Robinton shuddered. “The Cauldron. Been there twice now. Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that little piece of hell on Earth, though.”
Falk laughed. “Personally, I find it quite scenic.” He turned and banged on the roof of the carriage, then shouted, “All set in there?”
“Yes, my lord,” came the guard’s voice.
“Excellent!” Falk said. “Then…” He nodded to Robinton. “At your convenience.”
“I think now is quite convenient,” said Robinton, and the carriage trundled away from the Palace, across the bridge, through the Gate, and into the streets of New Cabora, their road taking them through the Square, where the Courthouse was once again taking shape, mages lifting the fallen beams and stones into place. The Commoners there took one quick look at the magecarriage, saw who was riding it, and either looked away or found sudden pressing business down alleys and side streets. Falk smiled to himself. A cowed population was a quiescent population, and quiescence in the Commons suited him perfectly just now.
Twenty minutes after driving through the Gate, they trundled past the final outlying buildings of the city and onto the road north. Drawing just enough energy from the coal burner to keep himself comfortably warm, Lord Falk gazed down the road stretching straight as an arrow from their rolling wheels to the flat, distant horizon.
As far as he was concerned, they couldn’t reach its end fast enough.
CHAPTER 25
Mother Northwind really hadn’t intended to tell Brenna the truth. .. or most of the truth… until she’d learned that Brenna and Anton knew that the men who had been dragging them across the ice were hers, and not Falk’s. If Brenna let out that bit of information to Falk… well, she’d deal with it if she had to, but better not to have to. So Mother Northwind had told Brenna the fate Falk intended for her, and made sure the girl knew that only she stood between Brenna and certain death at the end of the journey.
Afterward, though, she thought it might have been the best thing to do even if Brenna hadn’t known that the dogsled drivers had been hers. Perhaps, she thought, the easiest way to get the Magebane and Heir to do what she needed them to do was not to force them to it-though she certainly could and would if she had to-but convince them to cooperate voluntarily. Which was why, even as Falk’s magical carriage rolled north toward the Cauldron, she was forcing her aching knees up the Palace stairs to the very top floor… to the quarters of the Prince.
Karl’s bodyguard Teran stood outside. He nodded and readily admitted her when she told him she had been asked to check up on the Prince after his recent ordeal. And why shouldn’t he? she thought. Everyone knows by now that I’m Falk’s pet Healer from his own demesne. She contrived to stumble as she was passing Teran, so he would put out a hand to steady her, which he did; then she smiled, and thanked him, and went inside.
The Prince seemed to have just come out of the bath and, wrapped in a fluffy white dressing gown and fuzzy slippers, was reading a book by the fire. He raised his head as she came in, and got to his feet. “Mother Northwind? What are you-”
Mother Northwind waited for the door to close behind her. “Are we alone?” she said.
The Prince blinked, then glanced around the otherwise unoccupied room. “Um, yes… obviously.”
“No Commoner maid warming your bed in the other room?”
The Prince’s face flushed. “No,” he said shortly. “And I think you forget yourself, Healer.”
“Don’t try to awe me with your Princely high-andmightiness, Your ‘Highness.’ ” Mother Northwind sat down in one of the chairs by the fire. “And don’t stand there like some gawky scarecrow. Sit down. I have things to tell you that you may find upsetting.”
The Prince sat, but his face remained clouded with annoyance. “What’s this all about?” he snapped. “Why shouldn’t I call Teran in here to have you thrown out?”
“I’d like to see him try it,” said Mother Northwind. “But you need to hear what I have to say, Your Highness, and what I have to say is for your ears only. In particular, it is not for those ears,” she nodded toward the door, “when those ears are pretty much a direct conduit to Lord Falk.”
Karl frowned. “Teran? Are you suggesting he’s a spy for Lord Falk?”
“It’s not a suggestion, you innocent fool, it’s a straightout statement of fact,” Mother Northwind said. “Of course he’s a spy for Falk. Not only is he a Royal guardsman, which makes Falk his commander, but Falk is holding his mother and sister hostage. So even though he’s fond of you, your ‘friend’ Teran would kill you in a heartbeat if Falk told him to.”
Karl’s eyes narrowed. “And this is what you think it is so important to tell me?”
“No, but it’s part and parcel of it. You are not your own man, Prince Karl. You never have been. You are the creation of Lord Falk. And very soon, he plans to uncreate you.”
The Prince’s annoyance was visibly sliding toward fury. “Enough of these riddles, old woman. Tell me what you have come to tell me, then get out.”
“Very well,” said Mother Northwind. “You may find it hard to believe. But it is the truth, and you would do well to heed it.”
And then she told him exactly what she had told Brenna… exactly, right down to leaving out the one little detail she had not shared with the Heir: that her plan, too, required the death of King Kravon… but at a time of her choosing, not Falk’s.
Karl’s face went from red to almost as white as his dressing gown in the course of that telling. “What madness is this?” he whispered when she was done. “You’re telling me I’m not the Heir? Not royalty at all? Not the son of King Kravon?”
Mother Northwind shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not, Your Highness.” She laughed, amused at her own inconsistency. “Karl, I mean. But you are something far more important.”
“More madness,” Karl said. “The Magebane is a myth.”
“You are not ‘The Magebane,’ ” Mother Northwind said. “You are a Magebane. And you are my creation.”
Karl got up and went to the window, pulling back the curtains to look out, she surmised, at the place where he had almost been assassinated. “So when the assassin struck, there was nothing wrong with the enchanted weapons.”
“Nothing at all,” Mother Northwind said. “Your power woke fully with that attack, and hurled it back on the attacker.” She studied the back of his head. “Let me guess,” she said. “You had already had a hint that that power existed.”
“Since I was a boy,” Karl said. “Small things… magic has always tended to go awry near me. Enchanted objects lose their enchantment. Magelights die. And magically locked doors… can be opened.”
Even in her very brief contact with Teran outside, Mother Northwind had seen the memory of the time when one locked door in particular had opened, greatly pleasing two young boys. “Has Falk taken notice?” she asked.
“He’s never asked me about it. Tagaza…” He paused, looking sad. “Tagaza once told me the Magecorps were always struggling with magelights and such near my quarters, but I don’t think he ever thought I had anything to do with it.” He turned to look at her. “What would Falk do if he knew? Knew I might be a Magebane? Kill me?”
“No,” Mother Northwind said. “At least, not until he was certain he could not use you instead.”
“He must know what happened at Goodwife Beth’s,” Karl said.
Mother Northwind’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t,” she said. “Tell me.”
“During the attack, Denson… one of my captors… wanted me to stick my head up first to draw any fire that might be aimed at him and his friend. A soldier threw a… I think they call it a melonbreaker… spell. All I saw was a flash, but the soldier who threw the spell…”
“Let me guess,” Mother Northwind said. “No more head.”
Karl shuddered. “Yes.”
Mother Northwind noted that shudder. A soft heart, to go with that soft exterior, she thought. I can use that.
