Havenstar

by Glenda Larke

It had taken a great bite out of his neck and drunk his blood—

  There was now a semi-circle of Defenders gathered around the door, pikes at the ready. Some had been maudlin with liquor a few minutes earlier, others asleep, but they all looked alert enough now. White-faced perhaps, but tersely vigilant. The pounding on the door shattered more of the bracket for the bar, and the upper hinge broke with a grinding snap of metal.

  She and Davron stayed on the stairs so that they could get a clear shot over the heads of the Defenders the moment the door burst in.

  ‘Your knives,’ Scow said solemnly and handed them back as if he was taking part in some kind of ceremonial. She was glad to see they’d been wiped clean and Graval’s body had been removed. Portron had also disappeared and Pickle was now armed with several wicked-looking choppers from the kitchen.

  Still in a state of shock, she heard the officer in charge of the Defenders instruct his men to hold back to give the archers a chance once the door broke, and realised he was talking about her, and Davron. The officer was a large blond man with a precise way of speaking and an accent that was so aristocratic it was almost a parody, but he exuded an air of competent calm. He, at least, was immune from panic.

  She shivered. There wouldn’t be much time for those arrows.

  Davron glanced at Meldor. ‘Ley?’ he asked quietly.

  More of the bracket for the bar splintered. Pickle was trying to reinforce it with a plank of wood torn from a bench. Meldor stood tall and calm. ‘Not here, last resort only.’

  ‘More light,’ Pickle was roaring to his staff, ‘we need more light!’ There were wall candles in the hallway, but no lamps.

  And then a final crack, sharp and explosive. The door was hurtled inwards, knocking several of the Defenders to the floor. There was a howl of wind—a blast of air—and then there was no light at all except what came from the common room. Both Keris and Davron let loose an arrow, but in the sudden dimness neither risked a second shot for fear of hitting the Defenders.

  There was a stifled silence, a silence of suppressed breathing, of halted movement, of burgeoning fear. She had an impression of a vast shape outside the door, something lumpish and dark—

  Someone moaned, a soft sound of undiluted terror. Darkness filled the doorway, blocking out the night. A smell of musk, wet fur and stale urine stung her throat with acid potency.

  Then the darkness lurched and vanished.

  ‘It’s gone!’ someone said, incredulous.

  A servant brought a lamp, the doorway was illuminated, and there was nothing there. The Defenders cautiously edged their way out into the yard and Davron and Scow went with them. Pickle began dispensing orders in a bellowing roar, calling for hammer and nails, that lumber down in the cellar and be quick about it, and how about some action from you lazy lot of tainted layabouts? Servants scurried this way and that.

  Keris sank down onto the stair and leant her head against the rough wood banister. Her eyes were on the gouge marks across the front of the door. The slabs were furrowed from side to side to a finger-width depth and the edges of the scoring were charred. A smell of burnt wood lingered on, together with the more unpleasant stench of the pet.

  Someone sat down beside her and she looked to see the Chameleon. ‘Bit of an anti-climax, eh?’ he said.

  ‘Where were you? I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Oh, I sort of faded out into the woodwork,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘I’m getting good at that sort of thing. I don’t suppose it would’ve helped me one whit against whatever that thing was, but I felt loads safer.’

  She gave a reluctant smile. ‘Ley-life, Quirk—what happened? Graval—?’

  ‘He sort of went mad, I think. He’d been out in the yard all evening, and then Master Pickle told him he’d have to come in because it was time to bar the door, so he did. Chantor Portron was still performing kineses. Graval went into the common room and had a drink. He sat all huddled up like it was cold. He was rubbing his arms and wiggling around in his seat, then he, well, he went berserk. Dashed out and struck Portron down, cursing him. Next he laid about with a chair, scattering all those who had been performing kinesis. Then that thing came to the door, and Graval was trying to get out to it—or to let it in, or something.’ He hesitated, powerless to stop his shiver at the memory. ‘You know the rest.’

  Meldor, who was still standing on the stair in an attitude of relaxed interest, said, ‘Too much stability here for him. Portron’s kineses must have been the last straw.’

  ‘You knew he was a Minion?’ she asked and did not try to hide the note of accusation that crept into her voice.

  ‘Indeed, no. Although I should have wondered. All that clumsiness? It was to make us wary of him, so no one wanted to come near. If any of us ley-lit had touched him, we’d have known. We’d have felt his corruption, his perverted ley. And that lack of control over his horse? The poor beast must have sensed his true nature, and been in a panic the whole time.’

  ‘But why did he join a fellowship in the first place?’

  ‘To spy. Why else? Keris, how else does the Unmaker know what is going on in the Unstable if his Minions don’t tell him?’

  ‘I thought—I thought Lord Carasma was sort of like the Maker. All-seeing.’

  He smiled a little. ‘Blasphemy, Keris. Better not let Portron hear you speak of any such resemblance!’

  ‘But—but he knew things. About me. How could he have known such things? He knew how I felt, what I wanted most—’

  ‘Yes. Face to face in the ley, Lord Carasma can read any of us like a book.’

  ‘He knew my mother was alive still.’

  ‘No, but he might have known she was not yet dead.’

  ‘There’s a distinction?’

  ‘Chantry believes that all souls must pass the way of the Unmaker first, before being made at one with That Which Is Created. Carasma weeds out those on which he has a claim. He would know your mother had not yet passed his way. But other than that, his powers outside ley lines are limited. He controls indirectly, through his Minions and their pets and his paid servants. They are his eyes and ears. This is the first time, though, that I’ve heard of him placing a Minion in a fellowship. Perhaps we should be flattered. It’s an indication of how important at least one of us is to him. It is not easy to find a Minion who can withstand a stab, even a sinkhole like Hopen Grat, for long enough to deceive a guide and join a fellowship. Graval was a special man. I could admire him, if he had not chosen the wrong path for his talents.’

  She clamped her lips into a thin line, trying not to remember the sound of a blade thudding into his throat.

  Davron re-entered the hallway. He was holding a dead hen in his hand, one of Pickle’s layers. It’s neck had been cut open, but not quite severed.

  ‘Any sign of—of whatever it was?’ she asked him, but her eyes were on the blood-drenched bird.

  He shook his head. ‘It left a trail of ichor. I think both our arrows are still in it. We followed the trail to the stockade fence, but no further. None of us had the stomach for going out there, not tonight. I don’t think it will trouble us again.’

  ‘Nor at all, I imagine,’ Meldor said calmly. ‘Not wounded and with its master dead. Why the—er—chicken, Davron?’

  The Chameleon and Keris exchanged glances. Useless to wonder just how Meldor knew the guide was carrying anything at all.

  ‘Touch it,’ Davron suggested, and held it out.

  Meldor reached out and rested his fingers on the feathers of the bird’s back for a moment. ‘Ah. A worship sacrifice. It’s been dead for several hours, I think.’

  ‘A what?’ the Chameleon asked.

  She tried to look at Quirk. His voice came out of nowhere; in the dim light of the hall, he kept fading away into the background, indistinguishable from the treads of the stairs and the hand-hewn walls of the halt where the bark still clung to the planks in leprous patches.

  Meldor wiped his hands on his kerchief. ‘The only way for a Minion to con
tact his lord while not in a ley line is for him to perform a rather nasty ritual of worship that must involve a slow death by bleeding. I’m surprised Graval was content with a hen. Bigger prey offer a stronger contact. We are lucky he didn’t decide to use one of our horses, or even a man.’

  ‘Reasons of stealth, I imagine,’ Davron said. ‘He wasn’t intending to go mad and be killed. He wanted to continue his spying on us.’ Pickle appeared in the doorway and Davron handed the chicken to him. ‘You may as well cook it.’

  ‘One of my best layers,’ Pickle said morosely. ‘Do you know how hard it is to keep a chicken untainted in this place?’

  ‘From now on, Pick,’ Davron said, carefully avoiding looking Keris’s way as he spoke, ‘I want you to tell every single guide that comes through here they’d better check their fellowships for the presence of Minions, before they leave the stabs. Suggest they ask their fellowship to strip to the waist. All Minions carry the chain and sigils of Carasma.’

  ‘Oh, the women in the fellowships will love that,’ said Quirk. ‘Are you going to ask Corrian to take off her clothes tomorrow, Master Davron?’

  Davron winced at the thought and Pickle laughed. ‘Somehow I think enough people have checked Corrian out without Davron having to resort to that.’

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ said Meldor. He appeared suddenly saddened, and the touch of distress aged him.

  They climbed the stairs together, in silence, Meldor and the Chameleon ahead, Davron and Keris behind. There were a few scattered goodnights at the top and they went off into their respective rooms. Or so she thought, until she stepped into her room and realised Davron was right behind her. She could not help flinching away.

  If he saw her reaction, he ignored it. ‘We left our wine,’ he said by way of explanation. He picked up the wine skin, and her mug. He topped it up from the skin and handed it to her. ‘Drink this. You have need of it.’

  She took the mug with fingers that trembled.

  He filled his own mug. ‘Keris,’ he said gently, ‘don’t lose any sleep over it. You did the right thing at the right time, and there are a number of people who can be grateful to you tonight.’

  She blinked, wondering at his understanding, staggered that—of all of them—he was the only one to know how she felt. To know how scarified she’d been by the sight of her knife in a man’s throat, the blood gushing, the light snuffed out, the life gone...

  ‘I remember,’ he said, and he had quelled the harshness in his voice, ‘what it was like the first time.’ He spoke almost absently as if he’d forgotten she was there. He was looking beyond her, into some place in the past which was beyond her knowledge, yet now within her understanding. ‘I was out on one of my first patrols with the Defenders. I was just a kid, but then—so was he. He was an Unbred who had somehow escaped the rule-chantors. He’d had fourteen years or so of life in the stability, life that he should never have had at all ... but that didn’t make his death any easier for me.’

  ‘He was deformed?’

  He nodded. ‘A crippled arm and leg at birth. Hidden by his parents on their farm, until the Rule Office found out about him. He was a bit too old for them to smother by then, but still an affront to their ordered souls. They were surprisingly magnanimous.’ He snorted. ‘They commanded us to take the lad and abandon him in the Unstable. He didn’t want to go, naturally enough. We talked, and I felt sorry for him. Then he jumped me on guard duty one night. I didn’t mean to kill him, but that’s what ended up happening. Considering his disability, he was surprisingly strong.’

  He paused, sipping his wine absent-mindedly and she waited for him to continue.

  ‘I assume he wanted to die rather than face exclusion,’ he said at last. He looked at her then, and she saw to her surprise that he had tears in his eyes. ‘It was a long time ago ... but I can’t forget. He may have wanted to die, but I lost something that night. I never felt young again. The first time ... is difficult. And perhaps even worse than that, is the fact that it gets easier. It shouldn’t. Killing someone should never be easy.’

  She nodded, unable to trust herself to speak.

  ‘Graval, at least, had forfeited his right to life. Don’t let it touch you too much. He wasn’t worth it.’ He waved his wine skin at her still untouched glass. ‘I’m—I’m sorry you’ve had such a bad journey on your first trip into the Unstable. It happens that way sometimes. Anyway, drink your wine and go to bed.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, ‘Davron.’ No title, just his name.

  He went to the door and stood there, looking at her, sharing his pain, understanding her own. And then he was gone.

  She closed the door and picked up Piers’ staff. She hugged it to her, missing her father, wanting her mother. Wanting Davron. By all Creation’s ordering, what sort of man was he? How could he ride the Unstable with all the stolidity of a donkey pulling a millstone around in an endless circle, knowing what was in his future? What kind of man could hold on to his sanity knowing one day he would do the Unmaker’s bidding—yet who could be sensitive enough to know how she had felt at Graval’s death?

  She drank the wine as if it was water and wished she had more.

  She dreamed of Davron that night. It was a dream disturbing enough to wake her, and it left her filled with uncomfortable feelings she could not pin down and with the odd sensation that her skin was too small for her body. Her insides seemed compressed, spiralled too tight, in need of release. Even her nipples swelled against her night-dress.

  Rolling over, she lay flat on her back with her hands locked behind her head. She knew what it was she felt. She had Sheyli’s frankness to thank for that, but she didn’t welcome the sensations, not when they came accompanied by dreams of Davron Storre. Sheyli might have been explicitly frank when she spoke of the physical manifestations of desire, but no one had ever explained to her how it was possible to want a man who had done something as despicable as to give his promise of servitude to the Unmaker. A man who may one day have to kill her, if that was what he was ordered to do.

  She shivered and waited for the dawn.

  ~~~~~~~

  Keris was late into the common room for breakfast. She’d not slept well and both her body and mind felt leaden. She was glad of the strong brew of char the waitress served up, but was less attracted by the griddle cakes and honey that came with it. And still less happy when she overheard snatches of conversation from a group of several tainted men at a nearby table. One had a mouse-like head, another fangs and slit-eyes, and a third a face so flat that the nostrils were only holes without a nose.

  ‘I tell you,’ the mouse was saying, ‘there are dragons. Or something similar. Flying creatures that eat chantists and let the tainted pass.’

  ‘No, Havenstar can’t be like that!’ the fanged man protested. ‘My friend has been there. He wouldn’t say much, but he did say—’

  Keris missed the next bit, and heard only the flat-faced man laugh and observe that he rather preferred the idea of dragons that ate chantists.

  The next few words she heard clearly came from the mouse. ‘—not making it up. It was possible to fly in their embrace. Imagine that—fly!’

  She lost the rest of the conversation, because Meldor made his way unerringly across the room towards her and slipped into the empty chair at her table.

  ‘Greetings,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to find you. We never did get to finish our conversation about maps yesterday.’

  ‘I have nothing to add to what was said,’ she replied, raising her voice a little to be heard over a volley of hammering that came from outside. Pickle’s employees had evidently been set to reinforcing the halt’s defences. ‘Meldor, are you a Trician too?’

  There was a momentary pause before he asked: ‘Too?’

  ‘Davron told me last night he was once a Defender, and that means Trician to me.’

  ‘Ah. Yes, he was, once. He forfeited that right when he became an Unstabler, of course. Before that, he belonged to a minor
domain house of the Fourth Stab. He was Davron of Storre then. Nobody of any particular importance in the Trician hierarchy.’

  ‘And you?’ she persisted.

  He shook his head. ‘What makes you think I’m Trician?’

  She shrugged. ‘A certain—assurance. A quality of leadership. An unconscious assumption you seem to make that you will be obeyed. And your accent.’

  ‘No. Those things, if I do indeed have them, didn’t come from a Trician background. I was born, as far as I know, the son of a wheelwright somewhere or other. I never knew either of my parents, and was never even told which stab they were from. I was a third son and as a consequence I was given over to Chantry immediately after birth. As you doubtless know, too big a family is considered inimical to Order.’

  She nodded. Everyone tried to limit family size, using one method or another, but accidents happened often enough and Rule-chantors were ruthless in ferreting out additions to families that had already reached optimum numbers. She made a gesture of distress, remembering her little brother Aurin.

  ‘A wheelwright has need of only one son to maintain the business,’ he continued, ‘whereas Chantry can never have too many chantors. Especially since so many lose their lives serving fellowships during crossings.’ His voice was so deliberately toneless, she could not tell what his feelings were. ‘I was wet-nursed by a chantora breeder in Dene. That’s in the Seventh. Later I was sent for Chantry training in Salient.’

  She almost dropped her cup. ‘You were a chantor?’

  ‘Is that so hard to believe?’

  ‘Yes. Somehow it is.’ She’d thought him too much an individual, too independent, to have ever submitted to the regimen of a religious life.

  ‘I was not given any choice in the matter at the time. Now of course I have no ties to Chantry. They cast me off when I lost my sight, you see. Blindness is also inimical to Order.’ He sounded amused rather than bitter. ‘I was excluded from all stabilities, thrust out into the Unstable after fifty years of service to Chantry. Strange, they never do that to the deaf; only to the blind. I sometimes wonder if that’s because a lot more of the elderly, Hedrin-chantors included, go deaf rather than go blind ... but perhaps I’m just a cynic. However, there’s nothing like being on the receiving end of injustice for awakening one to the reality of the Rule’s innate iniquities. I became an unbeliever overnight.’ The thread of amusement was still there, as if he was laughing at the man he’d once been.