Chapter 26: In Which Tongues Take to Wagging

Both Burgen and the old man drank too much wine that night, I didn't have any appetite, I ate as much as my stomach had room to contain and concentrated on not looking at Varemini. But my eyes wanted to see her, and when my mind wandered, they'd wander off in her direction. She sat only a few chairs away, yet she was as far from me as ever.

It was the first time I had seen the crown prince Joaquin and the first time I had laid eyes on his new wife. But it was she, rather than he, who struck me as remarkably familiar. Somewhere, I thought as I watched her boldly bow like a man, at some time, in some distant, deeply buried memory – I had met that woman.

How this could be, I didn't understand. I was convinced that I would have remembered meeting someone like her, even if she were dressed in rags with her hair disheveled. There was something memorable about her, something different.

It haunted me, the feeling of misplaced recognition. That, and that thing that clung to her. It was inside her, and surrounding her; it held her safe within its grasp, shapeless, colourless, yet terrible. She did not seem to notice it, she moved about within it, it was slowly sucking away her life, millisecond by millisecond, and she was unaware.

"She's a Wielder, isn't she?" I asked, raising my voice over Burgen's freshest boat of giggles. I hadn't said a word throughout the entire evening, and when the courtiers moved on to the lounge to sip sweet wine and read out poetry, I was left to decide for the three of us that it was time to say goodnight. Burgen, who could barely walk, was finding every single thing immensely funny, and kept apologising over and over that he was a terrible drunk. The old man was no better off himself, and he seemed too old to be so intoxicated. I was afraid he'd die on his way to his room.

So it was up to me to make sure each one of them found their way safely.

"Varemininini's no Wielder." Burgen's speech slurred.

"Pergam is," The Grand Master said. "At least, that'd explain a thing or two."

"She is?" Burgen found this immensely confusing for some reason. "But... but... then how'd she gettit on with ole Cooper? Eh? Unless they didn't —?"

I felt terribly cross with both of them. I personally don't like the taste of wine and I always had an unshakable suspicion that when people get drunk they only use it as an excuse to act drunk. "Why does the King hate her?" I liked her, of course, not just because I thought she was pretty, but inside this palace, any enemy of the King was immediately my friend.

"Ah!" The Grand Master exclaimed, waving his finger in the air. "First, there was that incident with her brother, Erich Pergam and Prince Joaquin." He unfolded another finger, holding up two. "Then she went off and somehow became Harlock's mistress and now she's married Daphour's only son and he knows it's all to spite him."

My opinion of drunkenness shifted slightly as I stared at the old man's red face. Although partial, it was the easiest information I had received from the Grand Master. He had been, all this time, so reluctant to offer anything out.

"What incident?" I was also starting to enjoy gossip; as long as it was other people's problems it seemed immensely interesting.

"You mean, that rumour?" Burgen wondered "Issit true?"

"Shush, shush," the old man cautioned us, "the walls have ears."

"Only rats' ears," I said with confidence. While as a rat I could actually hear every single noise throughout the palace, as a boy I had other senses that could tell me if anyone was about. There was no one in earshot.

"So, is it true?" Burgen suddenly seemed wide awake. "The prince and Lord Pergam were really lovers?"

The Grand Master swatted Burgen's words away like a fly. Burgen snorted and began laughing uncontrollably.

"The King must've loved that," I said marvelling at how one king could have every single thing go so utterly wrong. Only one male heir and even that male heir had preferences that were strongly frowned upon in Auranora. The people would never accept a king like that.

Although, just because something was frowned upon didn't mean it didn't happen. As a street kid, I had been witness to many a secret rendezvous in the dead of night – and not all of them had happened between the acceptable ratio of one person per gender.

"But the King should be relieved that he's married a woman and is going to have a child," I said thoughtfully. "I mean, it hardly matters what he does behind closed doors, as long as there's a queen and an heir."

"Yes," agreed the old man, "but it also means that the future king and queen are Cooper's supporters, and therefore, your supporters."

"But I've never spoken to either of them. They don't even know me."

"People aren't looking for friends," the Grand Master said, "they just want to make a statement. They want their actions to mean something so that everyone will know that they're playing the game. Even if you don't intend it, things will go in this direction, as Cooper's son you are expected to be Cooper's heir and people will choose to give you support, and thus power."

We reached the Grand Master's rooms. Burgen opened the door and stumbled to the floor curling up and falling asleep instantly. "I'm just a kid," I pointed out. "What will I do with all this power?"

"It's only theoretical power right now," the old man said as he stepped over Burgen's still form and dropped onto the nearest couch. "By the time it ripens into true power," he yawned, "the entire world might change."

I went over to the corner of the room where there was a pitcher of water and a glass. I poured water for the Grand Master with a feeling in my stomach as if everything I had eaten that night had grown wriggly legs and was romping about inside of me. Everything, the entire world, was really going to change. I was certain.

When I turned to give the Grand Master the glass, he was already snoring loudly.

***

I never got to speak with the Grand Master about that night and the thing I saw in Angelique until it was already too late. The next morning I woke up with a feeling of uncertainty, unsure whether I had actually seen what I had seen or maybe my imagination had been overactive. From then on, I had other things occupying my mind that seemed more urgent at the time.

Because in life, it's either nothing interesting happens at all, or everything happens all at once. The very next morning, I found the book.

So many weeks had passed; I almost felt it had been avoiding me on purpose. Burgen and the old man were fast asleep, so I had gone into the library to search for it, and then I reached out onto the next book on the shelf and suddenly I found it in my hand. It was an old thick and heavy book bound in yellowing white leather. I knew it was the right one even before I looked at its spine and found my four small claw-marks, so tiny they were almost impossible to see, but I could recognise them – a message from myself to myself.

I remember, my heart was beating so fast that my ears began ringing as I settled into the thick carpet of the library and stared at the book for a long time. On its cover, in peeling golden letters, its title read "A History of Curses by Morlan Ventyke." This book meant something to me; it made my blood flow faster. In the same way that I knew that I had met Angelique before, I knew this book somehow. Yet, aside from the recognition that bit into my mind, everything inside me was still blank.

But this was a book, and it was full of words – words I could read, albeit slowly – and among these words and sentences, among all those dozens upon dozens of paragraphs, there would be a hint, something that would explain this pull I had.

I crossed my legs and set the book on my lap, opening it at random. I caught a handful of the crusty pages and let them run by, pausing only to read titles of the different chapters. The book was very thick and I didn't even know what I was looking for, so when I finished riffling through all those pages, I leafed about at random. It was a very detailed history of every big and famous curse that had occurred in the last thousand years throughout the continent.

Curses were a very powerful component of War Magic. We had just begun learning them, though the Grand Master had cautioned me that the trouble with curses was that while starting them was often easy, so easy that they could even happen by accident, there was no knowing how they would unfold. "Every curse takes a life of its own after it leaves its creator," he said.

I shut the book and held it between my palms with its spine downward and then let it fall open wherever it wished to. It opened on chapter 53: "The Curse of Elth Garden." I slowly picked my way through the words that illustrated a curse that happened in the neighbouring country of Alavan two hundred years ago. In one night every single female above the age of twelve had died, the book said, making young girls a precious and much sought after commodity.

"...this curse also demonstrates the national boundaries that some curses, have," I read, "as was discussed with the Wielder's Taboo in the previous chapter..."

I was about to turn the page to see what had been discussed in the previous chapter and only then did I notice what should have been glaringly obvious to me.

The previous chapter was missing. Someone had cut out those pages, leaving only a paper stub sewn among the other pages. I passed my finger over the stub – this was my hint, and it had been taken away from here. I leafed back a chapter to make sure. "Chapter 51: The Trapping of Sun Fairies".

This had to be it. This "Wielder's Taboo," whatever it was, was important to me. I had to ask the Grand Master about it. I shut the book with a decisive snap and jumped to my feet. I had to know what it was now, even if it meant waking him.

But before I could move a step, a soft rustling sound made me stop. I looked at the floor; a piece of paper had fallen out of the book. I bent down and picked it up. It wasn't the thick old parchment that made up the pages of the book; it was new smooth, white, writing paper, folded in half.

I unfolded it. It was a letter written in a neat, bold yet flowing hand.

My heart sped, I caught my breath, my hands began trembling –

It was addressed to me.