Havenstar

by Glenda Larke

  For the first mile the land seemed much like that around Kibbleberry village. If she looked back, she could see where the Impassables snagged the clouds, while ahead the forests and grasslands of the Unstable showed as patches of dark and light green through cat’s-cradle wisps of early morning mist. Yet she was aware of a difference without at first being able to identify its nature. Then it came to her that it wasn’t one thing, but several.

  The land smelled different. Not bad, or foul; just different. And the sounds had changed too. The background chirping of meadow birds and crickets, the sough of wind through grass and trees, all that had subtly altered the moment the kinesis chain was crossed. The birds sang different songs, the insects sawed different trills, the grasses rustled with a different timbre. The changes were slight, but a prelude to something more sinister.

  She shivered, then chided herself for over-sensitivity. She’d always wanted to travel the Unstable, hadn’t she? Well, here you are, you fool—be happy! She straightened in the saddle and looked ahead. The track gradually became fainter and fainter and finally disappeared entirely. They would not see another until they reached the outskirts of another stability; the Unstable did not allow those who passed to mark its surface. Here nature was under the sway of the Unmaker’s hatred for Creation. A world being unmade…

  ‘Yet the lack of tracks doesn’t seem such a bad thing,’ she remarked to Chantor Portron as they rode. ‘A road scars the landscape, after all. In fact, when you think about it, much of what we do harms the world irretrievably. Why, think of the stone quarries in the First. They are only used when it’s absolutely necessary—my father used to say it was no good asking for new stone until you could powder your face with the remains of the old, Chantry’s so strict about it—but the quarries are still a scar that will last for generations.’

  ‘Ah, my dear, you’re not understanding the true nature of what you’re seeing here,’ he murmured sadly. ‘Or rather, you’re not understanding its un-nature. The Unmaker promotes Chaos. And anything that is going against what is natural, promotes the chaotic. It’s not natural that a blade of grass, crushed under the hoof of your horse, should straighten its wee self up again after you’ve passed. It’s a negation of the true cycle of life and death. And it is therefore evil.’

  ‘Though isn’t something not being destroyed, but rather remade, a good result?’

  ‘The battle between good and evil is much more complex than merely creation versus destruction, Maid Kereven. Think of it as a battle between Order and Chaos, where the Unmaker may do good on his way to evil and the Maker can be forced, perhaps not to evil, but to a certain hardness of heart in order to achieve a wider good. Am I sounding boringly pedantic, lass?’

  ‘No. You sound more sensible than the devotions-chantor back in Kibbleberry. You should have heard the things he worried about. Who was sleeping with whom, or how much money the congregation was dropping into the collection. And whether people wore regulation clothes.’

  ‘Most people are appreciating such guidance, lass,’ he chided, knowing this last was directed at him. ‘We must do our best to keep the Rule, otherwise Lord Carasma will destroy all we have, surely.’

  She shot him a sceptical glance. She had heard it all before, but no one had ever proved it to her satisfaction.

  He caught the look. ‘Keris, the Maker made this world according to certain universal laws. Within a Stability, if I am falling off my horse—Maker forbid—I’ll always be falling down. Not up. Within a stability, life ends in death. Water freezes when it’s cold enough, becomes steam when it’s hot enough. All these things are constant. They are the rules by which things exist—or did, until the Unmaker came. As we ride out into the Unstable, you’ll see that those sort of laws are no longer always applying.’

  She was impatient. ‘Yes, yes, I know all that. But what proof is there that it’s the Rule which keeps instability, the unmaking of the world, at bay?’

  He waggled a jewelled hand at her. ‘Ah, proof, proof. Why is it the young are always wanting proof? It’s faith you should be having, child! No one can offer you proof of the kind you mean, as well you know, but perhaps you should consider this: Minions sell themselves to the Unmaker in exchange for immortality, which is an unnatural state. Yet if a Minion enters too far into a stability, he dies. He cannot survive where there is Order, because Order will not tolerate what is unnatural, and therefore chaotic. That too is why the tainted die if they live in a stab. Some people think it is the Maker that destroys them, but it’s not so. It’s simply that their innate unnaturalness cannot exist in an ordered world operating according to the laws of Nature and Creation. To unbind a man, to taint him, to make him untouchable, is to introduce an element of Chaos. Death is an integral part of being alive; to put an end to Death is also to introduce that element of Chaos into the world. True Chaos can only exist in the Unstable. In a stab, we emphasise the opposite of Chaos, sameness, day after day, year after year. This is Order. It discourages unnaturalness, it kills Minions or the tainted. And it is the Rule that maintains it.’

  ‘Why the kinesis chain, then?’ she asked, persistent. ‘It shouldn’t be necessary. Order should be enough.’

  ‘No one I know is willing to take that risk,’ he said dryly. ‘Kinesis reinforces Order. I can’t be offering you proof, but it’s what I believe.’ He dug into his saddle bag and drew out his feather switch with the jewelled handle and used it to brush away the insect-like flyers that were beginning to bother them. ‘Here in the Unstable the Unmaker has shattered the natural order and that’s the beginning of the ultimate disintegration of the world, perhaps even of the Universe. Look around you as we ride, Keris; you will see the beginnings of the end… The Unmaker rejoices with every blade of crushed grass that springs back to life. All such “miracles” are manifestations of Chaos. And there, ahead of us, is another such if I am not mistaken.’

  He pointed with his switch. ‘That must be Scow, Davron’s Unbound assistant, I suppose. And by the look of it, he rides a tainted beast as well. Most of them do. Untainted horses don’t like the touch of the tainted anymore than we ley-lit do. Probably that beast was his horse once.’

  It was hard to believe. The animal the tainted man was riding was huge; its body had the shape and the size and solidity of one of the old stone tombs of Drumlin Chantry House, and its legs were as thick around as shrine pillars. Its face was more aquiline than equine—it was definitely beaked—but its head had two wide-curved horns with ends that pointed forward. Its dimpled hide was a deep, rich brown.

  ‘Sweet Creation,’ Quirk muttered from behind her. He pulled nervously at the hair in front of his ear. ‘Do we have to ride with that?’ He sounded more frightened than contemptuous.

  She hardly blamed him. Not only was the beast frightening, but the rider’s appearance was not reassuring either. As with all tainted humans, he still had a basic human form, but in his case the proportions had changed. His head was built on a grand scale, perhaps twice normal size, and his outsized face was circled by an animal’s mane. The hair—fur?—of it cascaded down on to his shoulders, hiding his neck. His hands and feet were huge. The rest of him was normal, if large.

  ‘Poor fellow,’ Portron said softly. ‘A great evil has been done to him.’

  Davron Storre was the first to come to the waiting figure. He reached out and brushed his knuckles against the back of the man’s hand, a strange form of greeting she had never seen before. The Unbound man smiled and nodded.

  ‘This is Scow,’ Davron said as they rode up, and then introduced them, adding a few succinct words of information he apparently thought his assistant should know. ‘Corrian,’ he said. ‘Never been in the Unstable. Says she can gut a man with a knife, no trouble, and doesn’t think the odd Wild is much different. Graval Hurg, merchant. Has been on a short one-way pilgrimage ten years ago. Not a good rider and not ley-lit. Not armed. Young muscles here is Baraine. Tells me he knows how to use those arms he carries. The girl is Keris. Says
she can down a flying pigeon with an arrow. She seems to be able to manage that crossings-horse of hers.’

  Patronising sod.

  ‘The other youngster is Quirk,’ he continued. ‘Unarmed. Ley-unlit. He has been in the Unstable as a child. The plump gentleman is a rule-chantor, Portron Bittle; experienced and ley-lit, and armed only with kinesis, of course. That’s it for this trip, Scow.’

  The large mouth parted in what could have been a grin, and Keris was horrified to see that the tongue inside was catlike: pink, rough and long. ‘Guess we’ll manage,’ he said. The words were guttural, as if the enlarged mouth and throat had problems with human speech. It was the first time Keris had ever come face to face with one of the Unbound, and she was a little ashamed of her interest, and her revulsion. She tried to focus her curiosity elsewhere, to wonder why Davron had not introduced Scow to the blind man.

  ~~~~~~~

  The morning was relatively uneventful. They traversed a wide meadow, then rode through a patch of woodland. They saw nothing to scare them, although much of the plant life seemed alien. The only obstacle they met was a swift-flowing stream that would have presented few problems if Graval’s horse had not slipped and crashed into Meldor’s mount, unseating the latter. Fortunately the blind man controlled his fall and suffered no more than wet feet.

  When they stopped for a break on the other side of the stream, Keris was amused to see Davron consulting a map—her own; Thirl, she was glad to note, had indeed sold him one of the few maps she’d had time to colour. She felt a moment’s smug pleasure, but said nothing.

  While Davron was deciding what route to take through the forest ahead and Scow was bringing water to the boil over a small fire, Graval Hurg sat disconsolately beside Meldor and apologised at length for his ineptitude on horseback. ‘Clumsy me,’ he moaned. ‘Wherever I go, things go wrong. I bring bad luck. Calamity.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Meldor said, emptying water out of his boots. ‘And I hardly think being tipped off my horse into a stream on a pleasantly warm day is a calamity.’ His voice, Keris decided, was one of the most amazing she had ever heard. It was deep, yet sonorous. He never raised it, yet it seemed to carry. It soaks into one’s bones… When Meldor spoke, everyone else was silent, just to listen.

  ‘You know,’ Quirk said into her ear, ‘if the Maker came to walk among us like a human, I think He would look just like Meldor. Tall, imposing, regal, calm, possessing a sort of mature self-restraint—’

  ‘Blind?’

  ‘Maybe. I’d like to think He’s blind, then—’ he looked down at himself with a self-deprecatory grin ‘—then He wouldn’t be influenced by outward appearances. Otherwise Baraine might be headed for Heaven’s Ordering, while I’m damned to the Disorder of Hell.’

  She smiled, liking him.

  ‘Your drink,’ Scow said and handed Meldor a mug of hot char. Meldor, she noted, took the mug without hesitation or fumbling.

  ‘How do you do that?’ she blurted.

  His mouth smiled at her, although his eyes could not. ‘Smell, the feel of air movement against my skin. Tiny sounds, the rustle of clothes, a stone underfoot. Nothing you would even notice.’

  He moved away and Portron muttered under his breath so that only she could hear, ‘I keep on thinking I’ve seen him somewhere before. I just wish I could remember where.’

  Scow had brewed enough char for them all, and she was glad of it. She had no idea what it was made of, but it seemed to make her less tired. Graval managed to spill much of the contents of his mug all over Corrian; fortunately she was wearing too many layers of clothing to be scalded, but her invective was rich anyway. Most of it Keris simply did not understand, but Graval certainly did. He went several shades darker.

  ‘The man’s a menace,’ Baraine growled at Keris’s side. ‘He tripped over me a moment ago. Got me right in the instep with his boot. I’ll feel it for days.’

  We are a happy little group, she thought.

  Later, when they stopped for lunch, the fellowship broke up into small gatherings. Portron and Keris sat together and shared their food. Meldor the blind joined Scow and Davron Storre, while Quirk Quinling, Corrian, Graval Hurg and Baraine of Valmair initially sat down together, although it wasn’t long before Baraine went off alone and Quirk wandered over diffidently to join Portron and Keris with his piece of cheese and dried fruit.

  ‘Ah, do you mind, er, if I sit with you?’ he asked. ‘That awful woman keeps on making, um—begging you pardon—indecent suggestions to me.’ He gave Portron a horrified look. ‘How can she do that? She must be sixty if she’s a day, and she said she could teach me more in an hour than er—ah, perhaps I’d better not say the rest. It’s disgusting. She’s disgusting.’

  ‘I hope,’ Portron said mildly, ‘that you’re not thinking what she says is disgusting simply on account of her age. Youth is not after having a monopoly on the joys obtainable between the sheets, you know. However, I grant you that Mistress Corrian is somewhat forward with her suggestions, and I would be guessing she gives scant thought to the Rule when it comes to putting them in to practice. Nonetheless, just remember before you’re too rude to her that you have a long way to ride with her at your side.’

  Keris blinked and tried to hide her surprise. Portron often did not talk the way she thought a rule-chantor would, or indeed, should.

  His face was a picture of fatherly benevolence as he regarded Quirk. ‘Why did you choose to take such a long pilgrimage, lad?’

  Quinling’s shoulders slumped and he laid his plate aside. He began to pick absently at a hangnail. ‘I guess because I’m stupid,’ he said at last. ‘I wanted to prove something to my father.’ He looked up at them both miserably. ‘He’s a courier. You may have heard of him.’

  Keris stared. ‘Quinling—Camper Quinling is your father?’

  He nodded.

  She went blank with surprise. Camper was one of the best couriers in the Unstable. He was fast, reliable and renowned for making one of the most astonishing crossings of all time. Chased by a horde of the Wild, injured by a Minion arrow in his back and a ley cut across his thigh, he had ridden into one of the worst ley storms in history, only to emerge several days later, almost skinned alive, and still carrying the letters entrusted to him.

  ‘He has a reputation,’ Portron said.

  ‘Exactly.’ Quirk looked increasingly unhappy. ‘And I was expected to follow in his footsteps. When I was ten, he took me into the Unstable, just to make sure I was ley-lit. Well, I wasn’t, so that was the end of any idea of my being a courier, and you know what? I was glad. I hated the Unstable. It scared me silly. We were attacked by some half-wolves and we met this awful tainted fellow who was quite, quite mad… I was terrified. My father was disgusted with me. He said I was a coward, and he’s been saying it ever since.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ she said.

  ‘Well, it stopped mattering after a while. It is true, after all. I am frightened. I always have been, of just about anything you like to name. The dark, loud noises, girls who smile at me. Awful old women like that witch over there, Tricians like Baraine, they all scare me, and they’re nothing compared to what’s out there.’ He waved a hand at their surroundings. ‘I was weaned on stories of my father’s adventures, and I know the sorts of things that can happen to you. I’m petrified that…that I shall be tainted…’ His voice had trailed away to a whisper. He looked down at his finger. He had made his hangnail bleed and he put his hand behind him in embarrassment.

  ‘So why in the name of all Creation did you choose to go all the way to the Eighth Stab?’ she asked.

  ‘To prove something, I suppose. Stupid, eh?’ He gave a smile that contained considerable charm and whimsy. ‘I just had to show my father for once in my life that I could do something brave.’

  She struggled to understand. She, who had so little fear of the Unstable, who’d wanted to make the journey with her father ever since she was old enough to understand where it was he went, found it hard to compreh
end the depth of Quirk’s fear.

  ‘He came to see me off, you know,’ he said. ‘He introduced me to Master Storre, just to make sure I really was going to join a fellowship bound for the Eighth. That I wouldn’t change my mind at the last moment. He was right, of course. If he hadn’t come, I’d probably be heading for the Second right now.’

  ‘You’re a remarkably brave man,’ Portron said. ‘And a remarkably foolish one, too. It’s your life, lad, and you must learn to have the ordering of it.’

  As long as you obey the Rule, she thought.

  Quirk hardly seemed to hear the chantor. ‘I just hope I’m not tainted by the lines,’ he said and wandered away to wash his plate in the stream.

  ‘And I’m wondering about the kind of man the lad’s father must be,’ Portron said softly, ‘that he can’t even buy his son a pack horse and a decent mount. A courier could afford better than that poor old palfrey, surely.’

  ‘He could,’ she said, ‘but Camper Quinling’s as mean as a starving tomcat that’s found a steak. His miserliness is legendary.’ She banged down her plate in disgust. ‘Chantor, why? Why do we all have to make this stupid, idiotic, dangerous journey? Why does Chantry insist on it? Why does Quirk have to take this absurd ride when he doesn’t want to? Why can’t we all stay in the stability we were born in, if that’s what we want?’

  ‘You know what the holy writings say—’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard them often enough. And if I believed all they say, I wouldn’t believe in the Maker! How could I? How could I think that the being who created the wonders of this world is also so stupid as to insist that we make this journey to save our souls from eternal damnation, just to prove our faith? He is surely not so petty, nor so stupid.’