The Hidden Coronet #3

by Catherine Fisher

  Was ...

  It had gone. Shaking her head she flung the saar down among the rocks. “No!” she snapped. “Not this story either. You’ll never get me to forget! My name is . . .”

  But there was only emptiness. And as the army in the plain below gave a great cry, rain pattered hard from the iron-gray clouds.

  Bewildered, she watched it drip from her seven fingers.

  THERE WERE TOO MANY STORIES. They came so fast; she slid helpless from one to another like a shadow, caught up in the fights, the journeys, the escapes. Breathless and injured in the Karelian jungle; then lazing on a bed of silk in the Castle of Halen; another time wandering deep in the Forbidden mines, consumed with nothing but thirst—all the scenes crowded in on her. And she lived them. They were real. She could smell the mossflowers that tried to devour her, taste the bitter chocolate in Bara’s box. When the kite-bird struck at her in the tombs of Ista it made her bleed and hiss with pain, the thin amber stain clotting the fur of her neck.

  Only now and then when a story drew to its close did the despair come flooding back, the sudden knowledge of the cage, so that she knew she was trapped in an endless web of words and events and happenings—old treacheries, love affairs, wars, quests—none of it hers, none of it mattering. And beyond that was something else, some deep real anxiety that bit her like a Kest-claw which she couldn’t shake off, and in all the confusion of the stories she could never find out what it was.

  Once, deep in the strange Sekoi-houses in the tale of Emeran from before the Watch-wars, she caught a glimpse of her own narrow striped face in the mirror and knew her name was Carys and that her eyes were brown, not yellow, but the knowledge was gone in an instant as the keeper Ganelian knocked on the door and the whole relentless tragedy began. She was Emeran; all that had happened to her had to be lived through, and only when the tale ended and she found herself weeping over his body with the poison vial in her hand did she struggle back to herself.

  Just for a second, her mind cleared. She smeared the tears away fiercely, knowing she had to do something, now! But what? There was no Watch-training for this. No procedures. Old Jellie had never taught her anything about escaping her own mind. Galen would have. The Order, they understood things like this. They knew ...

  But it was already too late.

  The story flowed back. She drank the poison, feeling its hot stain corrode her stomach and veins. As she fell forward, retching, the white Emeranflowers sprang out of the ground around her.

  THIS WAS THE SEKOI-CONSCIOUSNESS. She saw with their eyes, smelled their sharp scents, dreamed in their odd, complex colors. The stories grew older, more alien. Now they were myths of heroes from before the Wakening, when the world was colder.

  Standing on the rock of Zenath, tied hand and foot with the broken sword at her feet, she stopped struggling with the ropes and stared up at the sky, the wind flapping her long coat.

  Because it was dark. Too dark.

  Quite still, she wondered why the stars astonished her, what was wrong with them; ignoring the churning wash of waves as the great two-headed god strode toward her through the sea.

  Then she realized.

  THERE WERE NO MOONS!

  The shock of it almost made the story fade. There were no moons, and the Anaran sky was black as she had never seen it, full of millions of brilliant stars.

  And it was so cold.

  This was important, she knew it was; she tried to hold on to it but the story surged back and the giant cried out, “Where is my sacrifice? Where is my reward?” so that the rock shook. She tore a hand free of the ropes and grabbed the sword.

  “It’s not me!” she screamed. “And I’m not going to fight you!”

  But the god roared and swung its great mace and she ducked, striking back at it. For a day and a night she fought with it, time that passed without time, until Anarax rode to her rescue on the winged night-cat, and in an instant the story transformed and . . .

  . . . SHE WAS STANDING ON A HILLTOP, still under a dark sky, with six other Sekoi.

  Breathless, she looked up.

  Out of the night, a silver staircase was forming. Down it came new, strange people; small, slender forms, their hair long, unfurred. A male first, tall and dark-haired, dressed in a coat of stars, and behind him others—a female, another bigger male with an animal in his arms.

  The Sekoi murmured. Around her, anxiety rippled.

  The Karamax walked out to meet the Starmen.

  Under her feet the grass was frozen. As she crunched on it something shot through her numbed mind like a stab of memory. She had seen this meeting before. A hundred times. On smashed windows, images, relics. These were the Starmen.

  Men.

  She struggled for the other word bitterly, forcing her mind after it as it slipped away.

  Makers.

  These were the Makers.

  The Sekoi gathered at the foot of the stairs.

  “We welcome you, strange people,” Sharrik said in the Tongue.

  The Starmen smiled. The tall one held out small hands.

  “Let us be friends,” he urged. “My tribe and your tribe.”

  She knew this story, but it was wrong. This wasn’t how Raffi told it.

  Raffi!

  How do I get out? she asked him, almost in tears. How do I direct the dream, Raffi, and get out of this stinking mess! What do I do?

  But he wasn’t there, and the Starmen were turning away. The story was fading and she knew she had to do something now, right now, or this would go on forever, so she shoved through the gap and ran, breathless, to the foot of the silver stairs and grabbed the cold handrail, screaming out the only name she could think of in an explosion of breath and anger.

  “Flain! Wait! Talk to me!”

  He stopped.

  Halfway up the stairs he turned, as if he was puzzled.

  She felt free, as if she had burst a hole in some smothering web.

  “Listen to me, Flain, please! Galen always says I should talk to you. So now I’m talking.”

  He smiled. “I see.” Quietly he walked back down. She saw he was a man in his prime; dark hair slightly touched with gray, hiding the thin gold crown. Close up, his face showed a small scar on the bridge of his nose, and the dark coat he wore was threadbare, flecked with small moth-holes.

  She caught hold of his arm. “Tell me my name.”

  “You know your name,” he said patiently. “It’s Carys.”

  “Carys! That’s right!” She frowned, scratching her furred tribemark. “Look, I need help. I have to break out of these stories!”

  Flain laughed. “You’ve needed help before. You’ve rarely asked for it.”

  “That was different!” Looking up, she saw Tamar and Soren and Theriss waiting for him. Right at the back was a smaller man, thin and wiry, his narrow face bearded, closed with some inner tension. A chill of astonishment touched her. That must be Kest.

  “Different?” Flain asked lightly.

  “It was never like this!” She shook her head. “There was never a time I hadn’t been trained for, when I didn’t know what to do. But this! It’s all in my mind. I can’t stop it. It won’t let me out and Galen’s in trouble, all of them are!” She had five fingers now. She threw down the Sekoi wand in disgust.

  “And we, the Makers? We’re in your head too?”

  “That doesn’t mean you can’t help me.”

  He smiled wanly. “Remember that outside the cage, Carys, if you can. And tell the keeper he will see me soon. Very soon.”

  Suddenly she caught a glimpse of gold in his hair and put her hand up. “That’s the Coronet!”

  He stepped back.

  “That’s what we’re looking for!”

  He nodded. “Indeed. Gold.” A long look passed between them; she caught her breath in sudden understanding. But he had turned and was walking up the stairs.

  “Wait! How do I get out?”

  “That’s easy! Even Raffi could tell you. You just open your eye
s.”

  “They are open!” she yelled, furious.

  “Ah, but they’re not.”

  A door slid wide in the sky. One by one the Makers went through it. On the threshold Flain looked down at her and smiled. “It’s easy, Carys.”

  Then he stepped in, and the sky slid back.

  At once the story began to gather; she could feel its power, speeding, crowding, moving her on, the fur on her face rippling back. She yelled with anger, shrugging off everything, swearing, struggling, kicking it away. “Wait! ” she screamed at the stars. “What use are you? Come back and help me!”

  No one answered.

  So she gave up in utter exhaustion.

  And opened her eyes.

  20

  Alas, who speaks in the silence now?

  Who lights up the dark?

  The Lament for Tasceron

  AT FIRST SHE THOUGHT it was another story.

  She was lying on her back, and all she could see was blue. After a moment she realized it was the sky. A mew-bird soared across, opening its mouth as if it squawked, though Carys heard no sound. In fact, all she could hear was a faint hum.

  She sat up, and stared around.

  She was on a wooden slab in an empty room, and she was cold, but the amazing strangeness of the room made her forget that.

  It was a bubble. An enormous clear dome of glass, coming right down to the floor all around, and as she stared out of it in wonder she saw that it rose up in the middle of the ocean, and all she could see out there on every side was water, a vast swell that slapped and surged against the glass, leaving swathes of foam that slithered silently down.

  It was astonishing. She swung her feet off the table and stood up, finding her body stiff and aching. She was ravenously hungry.

  But the dome! Walking up close she saw her own reflection, and putting a hand up she touched the glass. It was smooth and perfectly transparent, though it had to be incredibly thick. Not a whisper of sound came through it. Maker-work, obviously.

  There was a small step up to a gallery that ran around it; and she climbed up, so that her eye-level was above the water. She was standing in the sea; it was all around her and yet she couldn’t smell it or taste its salt. Miles of empty water stretched to the horizon, and the small moon, Lar, was just setting, a chalky smudge.

  It looked to be about midday. But which day? And where was the land?

  She shook her head. So much for boasting to the Sekoi.

  Her pack lay under the slab and she hurried down to it, rummaging inside. She pulled out another shirt and dragged it on, hurrying her coat back over it, then unwrapped a few strips of salted meat and dried fruit and gobbled them down. There was a jug of cold water and a cup. She drank thirstily. Obviously she wasn’t meant to starve.

  There was no way to tell how long she’d been here. Days maybe. The Sekoi might even have reached Galen by now. Chewing raisins, she looked around the room carefully and saw the door, outlined in the smooth wall under the gallery.

  She poured the rest of the water into her own flask, then swung the pack on fiercely. As she did the straps up, her hands shook with a fury that almost made her laugh. So she was a traitor, was she? She grabbed the crossbow, checked it, and loaded a bolt grimly.

  At the door she glanced back. Spray slid down the perfect arc of the dome. For a second she imagined how it might be to stand here at night, in a storm maybe, the great swell crashing high, flinging spray over the tiny room lit only by Maker-lamps. Who had looked out from here all those years ago?

  Not the Sekoi, that was sure.

  “Thanks, Flain,” she said. Turning to the door she touched the discreet handle. The door slid aside, soundlessly, just as the doors in the House of Trees had done. Cautiously, Carys stepped out.

  She was in a corridor. It ran into darkness in both directions. A low, barely heard hum filled it.

  There were no windows. Light came from tiny studs in the floor; as she walked over them they lit up, and those behind her went off again. Amused, she stood still. The lights stayed with her, lighting again as she walked, a ripple underfoot of pale glimmers. She had no idea if this was the right way. But it sloped down, and after a while the chill deepened and the walls became rock.

  She was under the seabed.

  At the end were some stairs. They were wide and the balustrade had been carved into ornate festoons of fish and shells. As she crept silently down, small lamps lit for her passing, held in the rigid tentacles of stone octopuses, slithering around the handrail.

  At the bottom was a hall. It was enormous, smelled salty, and the floor was covered with water. At first she thought this was some Maker-trick, but when she touched it with her foot it rippled; a shallow flood, right across the tiles. Under it eels seemed to slither, long watersnakes with raised fins, their colors blurring from green to turquoise in the gloomy light.

  Carys splashed across. Was it supposed to be wet, or was there a leak in the roof? She quashed that thought and looked at the doors. There were at least eight. Choosing one at random she slipped through and stared.

  She was in a gallery, and the whole roof and sides were made of the thick glass so she could see out, up through green depths of water. Terrified it might crack, and the vast implosion of ocean sweep her away, she stared up, shadowed by the creatures out there, great billowing rays, shoals of vivid fish, darting and flickering. Huge crabs scraped their shells soundlessly over the glass, and in places spiny coral had colonized it forming fantastic sacks and bizarre brittle structures that ribbon-snakes slithered through.

  She wandered the gloom of the gallery in fascination, barely noticing the door at the end until it slid open with a hiss that made her whip up the crossbow, stepping into the darkness warily.

  No lights came on. It felt like an enclosed space. She stepped forward and into something. A barrier. Gripping the cold tubing, she peered over, and bit her lip in awe.

  A great pit opened in the floor. It plunged endlessly down, dizzyingly deep, as if for miles below. At intervals a ring of small purple lights glowed, so close to each other down there, they seemed continuous.

  Giddy, Carys jerked back. She scratched her hair with cold fingers and laughed shakily. “The Sekoi certainly have secrets.”

  Perhaps her voice activated something. Because the lights instantly changed color. Far down in the depths a dim whine started up.

  Carys ran. She panicked, racing back through a door that slid open into another corridor, then down it, her heart thudding.

  When she stopped herself she gripped both fists and tried to think. The Sekoi had gone. So there must be a way out. It would just be a matter of finding it.

  Half an hour later, she knew the place was a maze. It must run for miles under the sea, surfacing here and there in strange atolls and domes. Weary and dispirited, she wandered rooms with vast lakes where mer-fish swam, and past a whole series of waterfalls that cascaded down walls. An entire chamber was built of mother-of-pearl, another of white bone like a whale’s great belly. She stared up at it. It was as if she had been swallowed. And Galen was in trouble.

  “Flain!” she yelled in sudden fury. “Were you only part of a story after all? How do I get out of here!”

  She hadn’t expected an answer. But as she swung away, to her horror, the air spoke.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” it said.

  Carys whipped around. She jerked the bow up, taut.

  “Come out,” she snarled. “Slowly!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” The voice sounded amused. “I can’t come out. I’m not physically focused in quite the way you mean.”

  It was a cool voice, oddly difficult to identify. Not a man’s. Or a woman’s.

  Carys backed to the wall. The room was empty. She could see that.

  “Who are you?” she breathed.

  “I am the palace.”

  “The palace?”

  “Of Theriss. The Drowned Palace, the Sekoi call it, though that is some
thing of a romantic fallacy. They’re a childlike race. But better company than none.”

  Carys lowered the bow. “How can you be the whole palace?”

  “In theory,” the voice mused, “you are, of course, right. It is a misconception. However, that is how I’m referred to. Specifically I am the intelligence of the palace. Its systems. Is this clear?”

  “No.” Carys rubbed her hair and found it soaked. “Are you alive?”

  “You do ask some interesting questions.” For a moment the voice sounded sardonic. “That one could take some time to answer. Let’s say I’m not a person as you’d define one.”

  “Not . . . one of the Makers?”

  Then it did laugh, an echoing sound. “I love it when you call them that. Tamar would have roared.”

  Behind Carys a door swished open. She jumped and whipped the bow around but the voice said silkily, “Shall we chat as we go? You did ask for the way out.”

  For a moment Carys hesitated. Then she propped the bow under one arm and marched out, head high, feeling very small and grubby.

  “This is ridiculous,” she hissed. “They couldn’t have made the air talk!”

  “They didn’t, of course. This way. And hurry. I have to keep the power down.”

  The corridor lit up, a glimmer of pale light. Carys stalked down it in silence.

  After a while the voice said acidly, “I appear to have annoyed you.”

  “It’s just,” Carys snarled, “that I’ve been wandering around here for hours . . .”

  “Yes, I was aware of you. I thought . . .”

  “You can see me?” Carys stopped dead.

  The palace laughed. “You are a philosopher. I can’t tell you what a change this makes. The Sekoi, bless them, tell everything in narrative. It takes so long! Their minds are not good at the abstract in any sense, though Flain told me once they’d be the real survivors. He’d be amused that they . . .”

  “They brought me here.” Carys walked on quickly. She felt totally at a loss; this was another situation the Watch had never foreseen. But she had to get as much information from this patronizing creature as she could.