The Hidden Coronet #3

by Catherine Fisher

  “I think we should go upstairs,” he said, pulling Solon’s sleeve urgently.

  “Be quiet,” Galen snapped. “I want to hear this.”

  “The Order are sorcerers.” The stout man spat into the fire. “And believe me, there are still plenty of them, despite the talk. They have all manner of secret hideouts. And spies everywhere.”

  Raffi swallowed, his throat dry. The wind screamed against the shutters.

  “They’ve put a spell on the weather. In revenge, there’s no doubt. They want to terrorize us all into fearing them. The Order always ruled by fear, we all know that . . .”

  “No!” Suddenly Galen’s pent-up anger exploded. He pushed Solon back and shoved through the crowd. “No! The Order ruled by love!”

  “Love!” the stout man scoffed. “It was lies, all of it! Flain and the Makers! What did they make? The world? The world grew, friend, like a seed.”

  Solon was on his feet. “He’s an agitator,” he muttered. “The Watch use them to provoke rebels.”

  “We’ve got to get Galen away!” Raffi was desperate.

  “You don’t know . . . You don’t understand . . .”

  “The Makers lived!” Galen roared, lashing a chair aside. “And only the Order kept the world from chaos!”

  Power was almost visible around him, the flames of the fire leaping up. People backed off; one man opened the door and slipped out. The stout man looked alarmed. He got up from his stool and pulled a knife.

  “Who are you?”

  Outside, the wind shrieked. A shutter flew open with a crash that made Raffi jump in terror. The stout man stepped back, the stool smacking over.

  “You’re from the Order,” he breathed.

  Galen smiled his bitter smile.

  “No!” Raffi shoved forward. “Listen!” he yelled. “Everyone! Listen to the wind! It’s not just a gale. It’s like a vortex!”

  As if to answer him, a blast shattered the door wide. Straw swirled, the fire flattened and roared. All the windows burst inward in an explosion of glass and wood, and Raffi felt himself flung against Galen, grabbing the keeper’s shoulder, feeling the sparks of energy as they crashed against the tables. Women screamed. Pots and dishes flew.

  “It is a vortex,” Galen whispered.

  16

  Lands will shake, the stars fall.

  The moons will plummet.

  Water and fire will engage in battle.

  Apocalypse of Tamar

  THE VORTEX MUST HAVE STRUCK the town full on. Deep in the dim cellar, huddled among casks and barrels, Raffi suffered its fury, the terrible wind shrieking like nothing he had ever imagined, the pain of it cutting through his mind like a knife, no matter how close he hugged his arms around his head.

  They were well below ground, and yet even here the crashing of walls and buildings came to them as the storm smashed whole houses and streets. Dust showered down, but the roaring terror had long drowned all talk. Some children whimpered. A girl slept, exhausted. In the dull light of two snatched oil lamps, Raffi glimpsed all their shadowy faces; dirty, tired people huddled in corners, who had managed to scramble down here when the inn roof had finally been torn clean away.

  The stout man lay against one wall, holding a bloody rag to his head. They seemed to have been here forever. The noise was unbelievable; Raffi was sure nothing would be left standing. Closing his eyes he remembered briefly the smothering moths, the broken dome. That would have all gone. Galen’s fierce urge to destroy it had been fulfilled.

  Turning his head, Raffi glanced over at the keeper. For him the pain must be a worse agony, screaming along the raw sense-lines, but Galen sat still, his back against the damp bricks, his gaze steady and absorbed. As usual in times of crisis he could go deep into meditation, his soul far off. For a moment Raffi let himself wonder if Galen’s rage had caused the vortex. Then he shook his head. That was stupid.

  Solon sat next to him, his head pillowed on a sack. The Archkeeper looked gray and wan. He managed a smile. “Can’t last much longer,” he whispered.

  An enormous crash shook the walls. A woman gasped.

  “Flain help us,” someone breathed.

  Suddenly bricks and stone came thumping down, a slither and thunder that made Raffi flatten himself in terror, and sent a vast cloud of choking black mortar through the cellar. For a moment he was sure the ceiling was coming in. A lamp toppled and smashed, spilling oil. Solon covered his filthy hair with his arm. “Tamar guard us,” he kept muttering. “Soren protect us.”

  Slowly, the rubble slid to a stop.

  The new, tilted darkness tasted of grit; Raffi spat it out, his whole body tense. This was terror; he breathed it in with the dust. It stifled his thoughts like the moths; that terror of the roof coming down, the crushing weight of the rubble above.

  He curled tight, trying to think of anything else. Where was Marco? Dead, almost certainly. He imagined him, bleeding under some smashed wall. And Carys, and the Sekoi? Had the storm struck them?

  He wouldn’t think about that.

  And then he realized he was listening to silence.

  Utter silence.

  Heads raised. Solon’s prayers faded. Someone said, “It’s stopped.”

  The silence was a great peace, a lifted weight. They could even hear the faintest plip of water dripping.

  “Thank God,” Solon whispered.

  Raffi went to stand, but Galen’s hand reached out and caught him like a vise. “It hasn’t finished,” he said, and his voice was harsh, filling the stifling space. “The center of the storm is passing over. We’re only halfway through.”

  The ale-wife, Emmy, came crawling through the rubble. She was filthy, her long hair dragged out of its pins. She looked appalled. “Are you sure?”

  “Certain.” Galen looked at her. “Keep the children close to the walls.”

  They waited. The stout man mopped his wound. “If not the Order’s work, keeper,” he said stubbornly, “then whose? The Makers?”

  Galen eyed him. “The decay of it.”

  “So what can save us?”

  “Faith.”

  “In the Makers? They’re long gone.”

  “Are they?” Galen glanced at him sidelong. “But you were right about some things. The Order are not finished. The Order will save you, despite yourselves. So will the Crow.”

  As he said the word, the storm crashed back, an explosion of noise. Raffi groaned, covering his head. He lay there and endured it, knowing it was worse, louder, unbearable because a woman’s crying was mixed up in it and from some dark despair he raised his head and saw Galen had an arm around Emmy and she was sobbing endlessly, her sons clinging to her. Time ended; only the storm’s scream lived. Once Raffi thought the battering rage had lessened and he almost slept, in sheer exhaustion, and another time he wandered into delirium and knew, instantly and surely, that the Margrave was behind him, a grinning dark horror at his shoulder, as he screeched out and jerked around. But there was only Solon, looking old and somehow shriveled, rubbing at a tiny mark on his hands, over and over.

  Raffi reached out and held his fingers gently.

  The Archkeeper looked up abruptly. “The cells were like this,” he breathed, his voice choked.

  An icy chill touched Raffi’s mind. For a moment he saw a pit of horror; clutching the old man’s fingers, he said, “This is not the cells. You’re with us now.”

  Solon closed his eyes. When he opened them something had passed. He patted Raffi’s arm and managed a smile, weary and kind.

  And then, infinitely later, hours later, Raffi must really have slept, because when he opened his eyes and hissed with the ache of his stiff arms, the vortex had passed, and gray daylight filled all the chinks and cracks of the cellar.

  PEOPLE WERE MOVING. Galen gently eased Emmy aside and scrambled up, dust streaming from his clothes and hair. Another man joined him.

  “The stairs are blocked.”

  Galen nodded.

  In the corner lay a great ma
ss of rubble. The upstairs must have totally collapsed, Raffi thought in despair, but Galen had already clambered up and was tugging carefully at it. After a while he said, “I think we can get through, but it will take time.”

  He pried a stone out and handed it down.

  They made a chain of workers, even the stout man joining in desperately as the glimmer of daylight above Galen’s head widened, and Emmy tapped one of the casks into an old beaker, handing it around so everyone could drink. It was thirsty work, and dangerous. Twice stones fell in on them. By the time Galen could squeeze out of the gap Raffi’s face was smudged black and his hands were sore and cut.

  The keeper climbed up and disappeared. They heard the slither of rubble. When he looked back in his face was grim.

  They lifted the children out first, then the others. When it was Raffi’s turn to crawl up into the chill gray morning he shivered, staring around in disbelief. The town was gone. In its place lay a landscape of ruins, walls barely shoulder high, stairs that led nowhere.

  People were picking over the desolation aimlessly. In places plumes of smoke rose up. Alleys and streets were lost under mounds of stone and plaster.

  Solon stumbled out. He was deeply moved; there were smudges in the dirt under his eyes. “Dear God,” he said. And then, “My poor Marco.”

  But there was no time to stare. Galen gathered everyone around.

  “We clear the stairs,” he said. “And use the cellar for the wounded. There’ll be plenty. We also need water.”

  “The well.” Emmy looked about hopelessly. “It was in the courtyard. Somewhere over there.”

  “Then we find it.”

  All morning they worked, at first with their bare hands. People from nowhere came to join them, some carrying injured friends, others desperately searching for wives or children. How many had died or were still trapped Raffi dared not think. Pausing once with a basket full of rubble he gasped to Solon, “The Watchtower will have gone.”

  “Assuredly. But anyone left will send for help.”

  By late evening the cellar was open. Fires had been lit and the well cleared, but food was scarce. Galen sent out foraging parties—it was strange how even the stout man, Andred, took his orders now without a quibble. Raffi went with them, finding what had once been a bakery and managing to scrape up some spilled flour and stale loaves.

  Coming back into the warm gloom of the cellar he squeezed past the rows of injured and saw a thickset man bending over the pile of packs in the corner.

  “Marco?” he gasped, astonished.

  The bald man turned instantly. He had the relic bag in one hand and the seeing-tube in the other. Raffi’s grin of delight froze; he dumped the food and raced over.

  “Raffi!” Marco said brightly.

  Raffi snatched the bag. “What are you doing?”

  Marco shrugged. After a moment he held out the relictube. “Perhaps I should say . . . ”

  “You were stealing them!”

  “Raffi, look. I didn’t know if any of you were alive.”

  “You could have asked!” Furious, Raffi crammed the relic back in the bag. “When Galen finds out . . .”

  “Ah.” Marco looked apprehensive. He glanced around at an old man being helped in by two girls. “Galen’s busy. He’s got a disaster on his hands. I don’t think we need to bother him with my little mistake.” He sucked a grazed knuckle, looking over it at Raffi. “Come on, lad. I won’t go near the things again. No harm done.”

  Red-faced, Raffi glared at him. Before he could answer, Solon’s voice, full of joy, rang over the rubble.

  “Marco! My dear son! This is a miracle! An absolute miracle!” He scrambled down, slipped and grabbed Marco to steady himself; the bald man hugged him with equal delight. “I thought the wind had blown you away too, Holiness.”

  Over the Archkeeper’s shoulder he winked at Raffi, who scowled and dumped the bag back in the corner. He knew he was defeated. If he told Galen, it would only make things worse. They had to keep Marco with them. He knew about Sarres.

  Raffi turned, and saw Galen had come down the steps. The keeper was watching them. His gaze was bleak.

  17

  We are channels for the power of the

  Makers. Including Kest. Kest is in us all.

  Twelfth Prophecy of the Owl

  BY NIGHTFALL THINGS HAD SETTLED, though Solon and Emmy and some of the others were still hard at work with the injured, bandaging wounds, setting broken bones. Moans of pain came from all corners; Raffi had to steel himself not to shut them out. There were few medicines, and many people had been dug out with severe injuries. More were still trapped.

  The night was cold but clear. All seven moons rose in it, and as he snatched a rest from helping with the digging he gazed wearily up at them, longing for sleep. He tried vaguely to open his third eye and make light patterns, but all his energy was gone, drowned out with the strain of the endless terror of the wind. And then with a sudden vivid shock he saw it, and stared, amazed.

  “Get on, Raffi!” Galen yelled. “There may be people still under here!”

  “I know. It’s just . . .” He looked from Cyrax to Atterix, then back to Agramon. “The moons are wrong,” he breathed.

  Silent, close behind, he felt Galen’s astonishment. They said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  Of all the knowledge of the Order, the patterns of the moons were what any scholar studied first. The patterns were eternal, year in, year out, the sisters’ long complex dance through their chain of movements—the Web, the Arch and, most holy of all, the Ring, formed only once a decade on the feast of the Makers’ Descending.

  But now they were wrong. Agramon was wrong. She should have been overhead, a thin crescent, but she was too low and, it struck Raffi suddenly, too big.

  “Agramon is falling!” he whispered.

  Galen pulled him out of sight behind a battered roof. “Say nothing! Try not to keep looking up.” But he stared up again himself, his sharp profile against the frosty sky. “Dear God, Raffi, this is worse than any of us had thought! Agramon is out of alignment. The skies themselves are slipping into chaos.”

  “Galen!” It was Marco’s yell, urgent. With a glare of warning Galen grabbed his pick and scrambled over; Raffi followed hastily.

  “Someone’s alive down here.” Marco was lying in a hollow of rubble. “Listen!”

  A whisper of sound was muffled under the stones.

  “We’ll get you out!” Marco called. He glanced up. “How many?”

  Galen came down beside him. “Two. But we need to hurry.”

  It took an hour to reach her. Each time they called, her voice was weaker. Emmy talked to her nonstop, pushing her arm deep among the stones till she could feel the cold fingers grasping hers. A heavy beam from a collapsed ceiling had held off most of the crashing bricks but the woman kept gasping for them to hurry, because of the baby. Always because of the baby.

  “He’s cold,” the choked whisper came up. “So cold!”

  Galen looked anxiously at Solon. “I can barely sense it now,” he muttered.

  In the freezing night everything went chill. Then Marco began to dig faster, recklessly. “Get more torches,” he yelled, flinging a stone up to Raffi. “And blankets.”

  The cold clouded their breath. Ice was forming on the rubble, beautiful and deadly. In the flaring light of the torches Marco’s eyes were red and sore in his filthy face. “I can see her!” he hissed.

  As the rubble came away, so could Raffi. A woman lying under the beams, in a tangle of smashed wood.

  “Take him!” she gasped, pushing something white up into Marco’s arms. “Please!”

  Marco turned to Raffi. “Get him to the fire,” he said, his voice oddly strained.

  Because the baby was dying. As soon as the tiny head fell against his chest Raffi knew it, and looked up, stricken. “Galen!”

  Flame light flickered around him. “Lay him here,” one of the women whispered.

  It was a boy.
They wrapped him hurriedly in warmed cloth but he was blue in the face and barely breathing, his tiny eyes closed and filthy with dust.

  Emmy bathed his face carefully. “What can we do?” she muttered.

  Marco and Galen were dragging the woman out. The stones slithered dangerously but she tore herself out of their grip screaming, “Darry! Is he alive?”

  The baby gave a faint croak as Emmy bent over him, massaging his chest with her fingers. “He’s going,” she whispered.

  “No!” The woman grabbed the child. “He can’t die!” she screamed, her face a mask of agony. “For Flain’s sake, help him! Can’t anybody do anything?”

  No one answered.

  And then Solon pushed forward. He came up close to her, his hair silver in the moonlight, and he held out his hands.

  “Give me the child.”

  His voice was so calm that after a second she obeyed. Solon took the tiny form and laid him down in the nest of blankets. “Get them all to move back,” he said, glancing up at Marco. “Right back.”

  As the bald man pushed the crowd away the mother crouched. “What are you going to do?”

  Solon looked at her kindly. “Nothing, daughter. Whatever is done here, the Makers do it.”

  She closed her eyes with sudden weakness.

  “I may need you, Galen,” Solon murmured.

  He closed his eyes.

  For a long second there was only stillness and the crackle of the flames. And cold. A cold that struck deep into them, the icy chill of death, unmistakable, hardening over their hearts as it frosted the ruined town.

  Until Solon spoke.

  “Flain,” he said, his voice raw. “Tamar, Soren, Theriss of the Sea. Kest of the Sorrows. Hear me. Put the breath back in your child. Put the light back in his soul.”

  The baby had stopped breathing. Even Raffi knew that. The crowd shifted, restless. “What’s he doing?” someone called.

  Solon touched the child; forehead, chest, and palms, breathed on him and handed him back to his mother.

  “Praise be to God and the Makers,” he said quietly.