The Hidden Coronet #3

by Catherine Fisher

  Carys bent and picked another out of the grass. She looked over.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She slotted the bolt in. “Stupid question. You can see.”

  “Yes, but I mean why?”

  “To keep my hand in.” She tucked the smooth hair behind one ear. “And to be ready for when we go.”

  “We’re not going till after the Feast,” he said, his heart cold. “And Carys, you can’t come!”

  She grinned at him. “Oh can’t I?”

  “Your picture was on that death-list!”

  To his surprise she just laughed. “Of course it was! Don’t worry, Raffi. I can cut my hair and change its color. They taught us all about that.”

  “You can’t change your face.”

  “You’d be surprised how bad people’s memories are. I’ll take my chance.” She wound the bolt back rapidly.

  He wandered over, knowing it was useless to argue. “You’d be safe here.”

  “I’m coming. If Galen’s going after this Coronet, then so am I.” She aimed deliberately. Watching, he felt the weight of the bow in his mind; then he opened his third eye and from the target saw the bolt explode into his chest with a wooden thump.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why weren’t we on that list? Galen and me?”

  “They don’t have drawings of you.”

  “Braylwin would have described us. They could have made some sort of picture.”

  She looked at him, thinking. “There are lots of lists. Still, you’re right. It’s odd.”

  A mere-duck flew over, its red tail flashing. She whipped up the bow, following it down among the trees.

  “Don’t,” he muttered, nervous.

  Carys looked at him irritably. “It’s not loaded.”

  “I’m very glad of that!” Marco was walking through the trees. In the last few days his wounds had almost healed; looking at him now Raffi saw a stocky, broad-shouldered man in the too-tight red jerkin Tallis had found for him. Red of face too, a bold, blunt, cheery face. He sat himself down next to them.

  “Now, I’d love to know why a scholar of the Order needs to practice with a crossbow. Maybe if I wasn’t a hated relic-dealer, and in Galen’s opinion lower than the muck on his boot, I’d ask.”

  Raffi frowned. Carys laughed. Lowering the bow she kneeled on the grass. “I’m not a scholar. I’m ex-Watch. A bit like you, I suppose.”

  “Ex-Watch!” Marco looked curious. “I didn’t think they allowed any ‘ex.’”

  She shrugged.

  After a silence he said, “My friend Solon tells me we’ll only be here three more days. Until after the Feast of the Field of Gold. Whatever that is.”

  Raffi looked appalled. “You don’t know?”

  Marco lay back on one elbow, ankles crossed. “Should I?” he teased.

  “It’s Flain’s return. From the Underworld. From the dead.”

  “Oh.” Marco winked at Carys. “I see. From the dead!”

  Raffi felt himself going red. The man was making fun of him. And the Makers. It made him angry. “It’s important,” he muttered fiercely. “It’s the first day of spring.”

  “I’m sure it is. Where would we be without the Makers.”

  Raffi scrambled up.

  “Wait. I’m sorry.” Marco sat upright, his grin suddenly gone. “Really, Raffi. I shouldn’t poke fun at you. Not after you all but took my head out of the noose. It’s just . . .” He shook his head in irritation. “How an intelligent man like Solon can believe all that nonsense . . .”

  “Is it though?” Carys said thoughtfully. “How would you explain the world, Marco? Relics—you must have handled a lot of those. And Sarres?”

  He pulled a mock painful face and rubbed an eyebrow; he had thick eyebrows, as if his hair had been dark, and across his knuckles the word ROSE tattooed in blue. “I’m a plain man, Carys. How should I know. There were Makers—there probably were—but I think they were people just like us. Well, cleverer. Where they came from, I don’t know, but I don’t believe they came down from the stars on stairs of silver! They knew things we don’t; the relics were things they made. Over the centuries the Order built up these fancy stories about them and forgot all the important bits. And why not? It gave them plenty of power. Men like Solon would have been respected. Before the Watch.”

  She glanced over at Raffi. He looked hot and confused.

  “And the power the keepers have? It exists. I’ve seen it.”

  “So have I!” Marco laughed. “Oh, I can’t explain that. The ice-cracking was incredible, but when Galen got those trees to close in around us—that would have made my hair stand on end if I still had any!”

  They laughed with him, Raffi uncomfortably.

  “It comes from the Makers, I suppose. It still doesn’t make them gods.”

  “They weren’t gods,” Raffi muttered. “They were the sons of God.”

  Marco lay back in the grass, hands behind his head.

  “Whatever,” he said lazily.

  IT SCARED RAFFI. He couldn’t talk to Galen about it because for two days the keeper had been deep in the rituals of preparation—fasting, meditating alone, on the hill and by the spring. And anyway, Raffi knew Galen too well. He’d have laughed harshly, and given him some chapters of the Book to study. Or told him off for listening to unbelievers.

  Sitting in the dark, silent room that night, with the fire and all the candles out, in the cold stillness before the day of the Return, Raffi found himself wondering about the Makers. Flain and Tamar, Soren, Halen, Theriss, Kest. All his life he had known of them, had spoken to them. Often he felt they were close to him, answering when he needed them. Sometimes there was just silence. He knew all the stories, had even stood in the House of Trees itself. And there he had heard a voice, a living voice, full of distance. A voice from beyond the stars.

  Marco couldn’t explain that away, could he?

  Raffi shifted. He was stiff and cold and almost lightheaded with hunger after fasting all day. Next to him Solon turned for a moment and smiled. It made Raffi feel better. He and Galen, Solon and Tallis sat silent. Even sense-lines were forbidden now, in the darkest time before dawn. All night since sundown they had waited, without food, without light, without speech. As Flain had done. Because this was what it must be to be dead.

  With a creak, the door opened.

  Carys put her head around and slipped in. After her came the Sekoi, a tall, thin shadow, carrying Felnia, looking tousled and half asleep, still clutching her worn toy, Cub.

  At the back, Marco followed. The bald man closed the door silently and leaned against it, folding his arms. Seeing Raffi’s stare, he grinned.

  Tallis stood up, stiff. Tonight she was an old woman, and wore a dark crimson dress.

  “Keepers,” she said. “The night ends. The time has come.”

  All the doors and windows were opened. Outside, the darkness was absolutely still, the sky mottled with high, pale clouds, moon-edged. Agramon and Cyrax were full, and Lar’s pitted face a ghostly shadow.

  It was Solon who led them out, stiff with sitting, over the gray lawns in the night-chill and up the hill, climbing the long slope silently to the top, and as they stood there in a breathless line the wind gusted, lifted Carys’s hair and Galen’s coat. Felnia had gone back to sleep; the Sekoi propped her against its thin shoulder.

  They waited, seeing all the darkness of Sarres below them, until Solon began the Canticle of Flain, his voice strange, as if someone else spoke through him.

  I, who had been in the dark, am come into the light.

  From the bitter places of the Underworld I bring all I have learned.

  For without pain how can there be joy?

  And without darkness how can there be light?

  Without hatred how can there be love?

  How can there be life without the selflessness of death?

  He raised his hands. A few birds had begun to sing in the woods; the sky in the east was pale, t
he underside of the clouds lit with a red glow.

  There is no darkness black enough to swallow me.

  There is no chasm deep enough to bury me.

  There is no fear cold enough to empty me.

  My heart is full; my heart holds all the world.

  The sky brightened. All the woods and fields were alive with birdsong. On the tip of the horizon far in front of them, among the mists and fog of the marshes, a slit of scarlet slashed the gray. Herons flew over, three in a row. All the keepers were chanting now, and Raffi with them, hands out.

  Behold, Anara, I have returned to you from the Pit,

  Bringing daylight,

  Bringing the spring.

  I have been dead. I have been alive.

  In all the hollows of your heart there is nowhere that I have not been.

  And at last the sun burned before them, vivid as fire, catching Galen’s face and Carys’s, and the Sekoi’s grin and Felnia’s yawn and Solon’s outstretched hands. It shone in Tallis’s flame-red hair and she laughed; it stung Raffi’s eyes to wetness and Marco’s broad face to a tolerant smile.

  All around them, Sarres was a Field of Gold.

  11

  Pyra looked up at the hot eyes of the Wolf. “I’m not scared of you,” she said.

  “Indeed?” the Wolf said politely, coming a step closer.

  “No. Because I come from the sky.”

  “You don’t say!” The Wolf came closer still.

  The wind rippled her red cloak. “I could singe your fur,” she warned.

  The Wolf grinned, showing sharp teeth. “Go on then,” he muttered.

  Pyra and the Wolf

  “HOW LONG, SMALL KEEPER?” the Sekoi asked anxiously.

  Raffi yawned. “Ten hours, nearly.”

  The room was black, lit only with two guttering candles and the dull ashes of the fire. It was the second night since the Feast, and Galen was deep in the dreamcoma.

  The others took turns to come and go, but Raffi had to stay. It was part of his duty as Galen’s scholar—though even without that, he knew he could never have settled to anything else.

  The keeper lay on a couch near the fire, to keep him warm. He lay still, without a flicker of movement, the sullen light making strange quivers over his face, his long hair. He was far, far away. Reaching out now, Raffi’s sense-lines could find no trace of him, only a great vacancy like a black pit, so that Raffi had to pull back from its edge, cold fear churning his stomach. It had happened before. In every meditation Galen walked far. But Raffi could never get used to that emptiness.

  He was tired, though he’d slept a few hours, curled in the corner while Carys and Tallis kept watch. Now, with the Sekoi here, he felt a bit more wakeful.

  “If I drank this well-water,” the creature mused, propping its spindly legs up on a chair, “would this happen to me?”

  Raffi shrugged. “It did when I drank it.”

  “I remember! What a panic we were in! But you have had some training.”

  “Not much. I’m on the fourth branch.”

  “And that isn’t high?” the Sekoi asked politely.

  “No.” Raffi prowled over and put a log on the fire. “Not really.”

  “We’ve been too busy for you to be learning much, maybe. And now”—it looked at him slyly out of one eye—“now we have to travel again.”

  “Yes.” Raffi sat down, staring at the sizzling log. He felt gloom creep over him.

  The Sekoi nodded smugly, as if Raffi had confirmed something. “You want to stay,” it said.

  Raffi didn’t deny it. He didn’t say anything. All his mind was full of the last two days: the Feast with its tables of food, the warm comfortable rooms, the small, silly presents everyone had made for each other. Felnia dancing with Marco to the small viola that Tallis played, the Sekoi singing one of its endless tuneless songs with a chorus that convulsed Carys into hysterics.

  In Sarres everything was clean, warm, ordered; everything was as it should be. There were set times for lessons and reading and work and just playing around. The Litany was said properly; all the feasts and fasts he had half forgotten were remembered. Above all there was no Watch, no fear, no constant staying alert, moving on. But it was a failing of his, this wanting to hide, to be safe. Galen had warned him about it. They were never out of the hands of the Makers if they did the work of the Order. Wherever it led them.

  Galen’s hand twitched.

  Instantly the Sekoi was bending over him, Raffi hovering anxiously. The keeper’s hand clenched, as if he gripped something invisible. Behind them, Solon came in and said in a quiet voice, “If he doesn’t come out by morning, Tallis and I will go in for him.”

  “His breathing’s changed.” The Sekoi spread its long hands over Galen’s chest and looked up. “I think he’s waking.”

  The sense-lines were coming back. Raffi could feel them, flooding the dark room with a charge of energy, surging from somewhere incredibly remote.

  Solon came quickly, feeling Galen’s pulse. He gave a sidelong look at Raffi and said, “Your master has a strange energy. I can feel it swooping into him like a great darkness. As if something wilder than himself lived in him.” He smiled, puzzled.

  Raffi looked down.

  “He never did tell me,” the Archkeeper said gently, “how he broke the ice. Will you tell me, Raffi?”

  “Ask him yourself,” the Sekoi muttered, to Raffi’s relief. “He’s awake.”

  Galen’s eyes opened. For a second he seemed to stare at nothing, but then his gaze focused and he pushed himself up on one hand stiffly.

  “How long?” he croaked.

  “Ten hours.” Raffi had water ready; he poured a cupful and Galen drank thirstily, all their eyes intent on him.

  “Well?” Solon asked eagerly. “Did you learn anything? Did the Makers speak to you?”

  The keeper glanced up, his hooked face shadowed with weary hollows. Echoes and taints of strange images flowed from him, a crackle of light around his hands that made Solon stare.

  “Oh yes,” he whispered.

  “AT FIRST THERE WAS JUST CONFUSION.” Galen sat against the calarna tree in the morning sun and looked around the circle. They were all there, even Marco, who had drifted over and lounged in the shade. Galen ignored him.

  “The Ride,” Tallis observed. Today she was a small girl; she and Felnia were making a huge daisy chain, working one at each end.

  “The Ride, yes. As soon as I had controlled that, I began to direct the dream. I spoke to Flain and asked him about the Coronet, to show me where it was and whether it was our duty to find it. When I had finished, I looked down and saw Anara.”

  “The whole planet?” Solon asked, surprised.

  “Yes. I was high above it, among the moons and stars. Below me I could see the vast expanse of the sea, and the Finished Lands were green and healthy, but so small, Archkeeper, so tiny from that height! And as the planet turned I saw the Unfinished Lands, over half the globe and spreading; a terrible, churning destruction, a world burning and dissolving and erupting into chaos.

  “The sight filled me with a sort of horror, but then someone called my name, and I turned. There were the moons, all seven of them, making the Arch behind me; Atelgar and Lar, Cyrax, Pyra, Agramon, Karnos, and Atterix, and I seemed to be drifting just above their surfaces. How different they all are!” He frowned, remembering. “Agramon is smooth and white. There is nothing on it at all, no hills or valleys, its surface is as smooth as a ball, and yet there are ruined buildings there, and a thing that looks like a broken dome. And Pyra burns, her face is ravaged. Smoke comes in great plumes from explosions deep within her.”

  “This is an amazing vision,” Solon muttered.

  “It gets stranger.” Galen scratched his hair. “It would take too long to tell you all I saw of the moons, but after an endless time I found a silver staircase and walked down it; a long, long descent until I was in a place full of animals. A jungle.”

  He frowned. “There
were creatures there I had never imagined. And I was inside them. First I was a night-cat, then a long winding vesp, then a wasp. I changed into hundreds of shapes, slithering from one to another; I lost count, lost all sense of myself. The colors and scents bewildered me—did you know, Solon, that a hammerbird sees only blue, everything blue, while a grendel’s eyes fracture light into a million colors we have no names for and can’t even dream? It was exhilarating and terrifying. I grew wings and fur and beaks and tails, I was huge and then tiny, shifting between shapes until my whole body ached for it to stop but it just went on, the creatures more warped now, with spines, too many eyes, deformed legs and minds. I became all the deliberate horrors Kest has made, seeing through their eyes, feeling their agony. I was broken and evil, full of hate. I was blind and unfeeling. My veins burned with poisons.”

  Felnia stared at him, fascinated, the daisy chain forgotten in the grass.

  Galen paused. When he went on, his voice was harsh, rigorously controlled. “Finally, all in an instant, I became something brimming with intelligence. I thought I was back to myself and looked at my hands, but they were misshapen, with bent nails, and they were holding a mirror, so I raised it and looked in. I saw . . . a face. Beyond the darkest of nightmares. Long, reptilian, yet with a snout like a jackal’s, or a tomb-dog’s, and eyes that were so evil I had to close them, because I feared for my soul if I looked into them. And then the laughter came, and it wasn’t me that was laughing but the Margrave, and yet I was inside the laughter, I was trapped in it and couldn’t get out.”

  He stopped.

  In the silence a bird sang carelessly just above them. Small fleecy clouds crossed the sky.

  Galen’s whole body was tense. Slowly he relaxed; his palms were wet with sweat.

  Solon was pale. “Everywhere we turn,” he whispered, “we meet this creature.”