Mark turned to Gilmour. ‘When Nerak was in Estrad, busying himself with Doctor Tenner and the fire at Riverend, where was the portal?’
‘I don’t know. All I can work out is that Nerak had it hidden somewhere in the city where no one would find it; he most likely did the same thing the day he took Prince Marek in Pellia. He probably hid the portal at Welstar Palace, made the trip downriver to the capital and took the prince right there at his father’s side.’
‘But the portal wouldn’t have been in his control when he was out causing havoc or taking souls?’ Mark felt another piece slip into place.
‘No. Theoretically, the portal would have been available, if not open, for someone else to use.’
Mark wished he had some time to himself, to draw a diagram or a crude timeline. He drank from the wineskin, then wiped his mouth and asked, ‘Steven, why do we live in Idaho Springs?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What are we doing there? I love it there, but I freely admit I don’t fit in as well as I might someplace else. And you, you’re worse than me. How many decent jobs did you pass up after finishing your MBA? Three? Four?’
‘What’s your point?’
‘Maybe we don’t have a choice. Maybe we were supposed to find Lessek’s key and we couldn’t leave. Look at you: you do magic with no spells or potions. You just think of things you want to happen; you will them to happen and they happen. Is that the staff, Steven, or is that you? Are you a real sorcerer, or are you a guy who found a magic stick that somehow got into his bones? I’m asking because I don’t know. But then I couple that with the fact that I left Fort Collins to come to the foothills and take a teaching job that pays less than just about any job I could have found down in Denver or in one of the suburbs. So I wonder what we’re doing there, and if we are there by choice.’
‘No one is forcing me to live in Idaho Springs, Mark,’ Steven said with a degree of uncertainty. ‘My parents live there.’
‘But why? Do you think they had a choice?’ Steven was about to respond when Mark pressed on, ‘Think about the communication I have allegedly had from Lessek. He quiets my fears moments after I arrive in Eldarn. It’s a memory from a day at the beach with my family. My dad is drinking beer. I had been drinking beer; I’m comforted by the memory and it takes me weeks to realise I’m supposed to be thinking about my dad. Lessek didn’t give a pinch of shit whether I was comfortable or not. He hit me with a memory of home, because he needed me thinking about why my dad was such an anomaly: he’s the only guy on the beach facing west; he has three hundred pictures of a family vacation that spanned thirty-seven states and almost all of them were taken within one hundred miles of Idaho Springs. He was drawn there, Steven, just like us.’
Steven was shaking his head. ‘You aren’t the prince of Eldarn, Mark.’
‘You’re right,’ he answered, hearing the almor’s cavernous voice echo in his head, ‘I’m not – not yet – because I believe my dad is Rona’s prince, Eldarn’s king. I won’t be until he dies, and that’s fine with me, I hope he lives to be a hundred and six.’
Steven stood up. ‘Do we have any wine left? I need a drink. Mark, this is crazy. You can’t be the prince of Rona, and I am not a sorcerer. We weren’t drawn to Idaho Springs, because there was nothing in Idaho Springs to draw us there.’
‘Yes there was,’ Mark interrupted. ‘You have it in your coat pocket.’
‘Lessek’s key?’
‘That night in our house, we chucked it away – we thought it was nothing, maybe a hunk of some crazy miner’s rock – and yet I felt it that night, Steven, and I felt it again when you came back here, that day by the fjord. It’s something I can’t explain, but it reminds me of when I get a flight back to Long Island to see my family: it’s about feeling safe, like I belong – feeling like I’m at home. That hunk of ore makes me feel like that – when I stand next to you and you have it in your pocket, and when I stand next to your bloody saddlebag when you have it packed away. At any given moment, I can pinpoint the location of that stone, even blindfolded.’
‘This is too much, Mark,’ Steven said. ‘You had a bad dream. I’m sorry Rodler called you a Southie, but you can’t take that insult and decide it means you’re sovereign of Eldarn.’ He was growing exasperated. ‘It’s too great a leap. You can’t explain the portals. I know for a fact that the safe-deposit box was never opened at the bank because the key was missing until I found it at Hannah’s shop. There are no records of any deposits or withdrawals from the day William Higgins opened the accounts in 1870. That portal was secure.’
‘But the other was not,’ Mark argued. ‘Imagine if Doctor Tenner, before he died in the fire, made arrangements to send Regona through the portal. Think about where she would be safest from Nerak – it’s certainly not in Randel with Weslox. She would be safest delivering that baby in a medically advanced society – even in 1870 – and then raising it there. He probably figured he would go and find her later, after the trouble had passed – he might even have drafted the letter I found behind the fireplace as a decoy, after all, everyone talks about this guy as if he was a genius.’
‘That couldn’t be the case,’ Gilmour said.
Mark turned on the old man, his argument ready, but Gilmour went on, ‘It would have been Lessek.’
There was an almost tangible silence, broken only by Rodler’s breathing and the ever-present babble of the nearby river. It was Steven who finally spoke. ‘Not you, too, Gilmour. This is madness.’
‘Actually, it makes sense, except Tenner – he was a brilliant physician and an excellent advisor to Prince Marek, but he knew nothing of the Larion portals. After the Larion Senate fell, only Kantu and I knew they existed, and how to use them to cross the Fold. Kantu was in Middle Fork; I was wandering broken and lost. The only person who could have done it was Lessek – he could have detected the portal and sent Regona across the Fold. He might have known that Eldarn’s monarch would be drawn to the keystone, one of our world’s most powerful talismans, even across great expanses of open land or water. Mark’s deductions, however fantastic, are quite reasonable. I’m not saying this is true, but it certainly could be. Lessek could have intercepted Regona on her way to Randel and sent her across the Fold to your world.’
‘But how?’ Steven was still far from convinced. ‘If Nerak was in Riverend, kindling Estrad’s biggest bonfire and killing off the rest of the Ronan royal family, how much time would Regona and Lessek have had? Nerak couldn’t have been there for very long.’
‘Lessek would have been able to detect the portal, even when closed-’
‘I believe that,’ Mark interrupted ‘When we opened it that night in our house, we could feel its energy as soon as Steven cracked the seal on the cylinder.’
‘Why isn’t it doing that now?’ Steven asked suddenly. ‘It’s there in my pack. Why can’t we feel it?’
‘You’ve grown accustomed to it,’ Gilmour said. ‘If we took that portal to somewhere never touched by Larion magic, the people there would feel a tingling in the air like you did. Regardless, if Lessek was on hand, he could have escorted Regona to the far portal and allowed her to open it.’
‘She had to do it?’ Mark asked.
‘Lessek would have been a wraith,’ Gilmour said. ‘He may have looked like a normal man, but he would not have been able to open the portal by himself.’
Steven considered their argument aloud. ‘So Lessek knows Nerak has the portal hidden in Estrad. He meets Regona outside the palace while Nerak is inside, burning the place to the ground. Lessek encourages Regona to open the portal and proceed, alone and pregnant, to a foreign world, where she is drawn by the force of his key to Idaho Springs, Colorado – oh, and somewhere along the line gives birth to Mark’s great-great-great-grandmother?’
‘Or grandfather,’ Mark said. ‘Otherwise, yep, that about sums it up.’