“What now?” The Sekoi fidgeted.
Galen was still. Then he held the Coronet out. “Archkeeper.”
“My son, surely the Crow . . .”
“This is for you to do. The leader of the Order. Who better than a healer to heal the weather?”
Solon smiled ruefully. He nodded and held out his scarred hands. The moonlight touched the edge of his face and through the soft drift of falling snow his hair gleamed like silver. His fingers closed over Galen’s.
“Don’t let him take it!”
The yell rang across the vast arena. Echoes of it sent loose fragments of stone crashing. The Sekoi jumped; Solon snatched the Coronet and whirled around.
“He’s the spy! It’s him!” Carys leaped down from the slithering gold, breathless and gasping. She aimed the bow hurriedly.
Behind them Marco dropped to the ground. In an instant he had rushed at them; Galen took a quick step back, then a flicker of light cracked from his hands. There was a stench of scorched flesh and Marco yelped, rolling in agony, the knife clattering onto the heap of treasure.
“You fool!” he yelled at Galen. “Don’t you see?”
Galen turned, grim-faced.
Solon had the knife. He slashed the air with it. “Keep back,” he snarled. “All of you!”
The change in him horrified them. It was a total transformation, something deep in the tissues of his skin, so that his eyes were darker and the very muscles of his face had clenched and hardened, all his kindliness dropped like a mask.
“Put the bow down.”
Carys didn’t waver. “If you try and put the relic on,” she said tightly, “I’ll kill you.”
“I believe you.” He smiled, a crooked, unfamiliar smile. “But your hands aren’t your own now. Not if I want them to be mine. They have been mine a long time.”
To her horror she felt her fingers slacken. The bow clattered among the gold, its bolt spilling out.
Solon raised the Coronet in one hand. “Now watch,” he said.
Gold coins slithered; he whipped around in alarm, but Raffi’s energy-line snagged him around the wrist; it crackled and spat and Raffi hurled himself after it, but Marco was faster. Grabbing the frail Coronet with his great fist he struggled chest to chest with the Archkeeper. In a swirl of snow they both held it, the awen-field crackling around them, but even as Galen ran forward Marco waved him back.
“It’s me, Holiness! It’s Marco!”
“Marco?” The Archkeeper’s eyes flickered; for a second doubt came into them.
“You won’t hurt me. Come on, Holiness, let me have the crown. We’ll look after you.”
Solon shook his head, bewildered.
“Oh, my old friend,” he said. “I’m sorry.” His arm pulled back. He stabbed, driving the knife deep in under the ribs, vicious and hard.
Marco’s breath croaked. He collapsed on hands and knees. In the moonlight his dark blood dripped on the snow, but Raffi had jerked the lines tight and suddenly out of the night the terrible wrath of the Crow swooped down on them all, a heaviness like beating wings; Solon was flung aside and lay crumpled on the treasure, the Coronet spilling from his hand, rolling over coins and cups to the Sekoi’s feet, where it clattered and spun and lay still.
For a second none of them could move.
Then the Sekoi grabbed the relic and Galen was on his knees easing Marco over.
The bald man hissed with pain. Blood was everywhere; already it had soaked his jerkin and coat and stained the coins under him. Raffi knew there was nothing they could do.
Galen lifted his head gently. “Marco?”
The man’s eyes opened. He forced a grin. “Sorry now, keeper?”
“What can I . . . ?”
“Save it. No time.” He winced, turning his head to look at Solon in disbelief. “I loved that old man. But how he’s used us. You and me. The girl and the creature. Set us up against each other; maybe even brought me along for it. Suspecting each other. Not him. He was laughing . . . behind our backs.”
“It’s not Solon,” Galen said urgently. “It’s the evil that rules him.”
Marco nodded weakly. “But he let it. Let it in. I wouldn’t have. Nor would you.” His hand tightened on Galen’s, then slid down to the coins, grasping a fistful. “Look at this. More than I’ve ever had in my life.”
For a second he held them tight. Then his grip loosened, the money slithering away.
“What a joke,” he whispered.
Snow settled on his still chest. Far and cold, Raffi felt the spark of his life go out, like a candle.
In utter silence, Galen made the sign of Flain on his forehead, palms, and chest. Raffi whispered some words of the Litany, but after only two lines the Sekoi crouched.
“Galen,” it said anxiously. “They’re here.”
The keeper didn’t move at once. He laid Marco down and his face was as bleak as Raffi had ever seen it, as if he could barely control his devastation. Then he stood and looked up, as Carys was already doing.
All around, high on the ramparts of the arena, the Sekoi tribes were watching. Thousands of them stood up there, their eyes bright as cats’ in the dark, the snow drifting silently onto their fur.
“Use it!” The Sekoi held the Coronet out as if the metal burned its hands. “Quickly!”
Galen was still. He was looking at Solon as the old man’s eyes opened; instantly Carys raised the reloaded bow.
“No,” the keeper whispered.
“Galen?”
Eyes black with loss, Galen turned. “No. You do it.”
The Sekoi blinked. “Me?”
“You and your people.”
“But . . .” The creature stared at Raffi. “I don’t . . .”
“He’s right.” Raffi came and took the Coronet reverently from its seven fingers. “This isn’t something only one of us can do. It’s for all of us. And we can’t reach the Sekoi. You can.”
Reaching up, he put the frail gold circlet on its head.
The creature’s eyes narrowed. For a moment only the snow fell, silent.
Then it said, “Raffi, I can see! I can see all the way to the stars!”
28
Flain was the last to enter the door. He looked back and it is said he wept for the Finished Lands. “I see now,” he said, “that we are the world. Deep in our souls lies the evil one.”
Tamar came back for him. “Not unless we wish it,” he said.
Book of the Seven Moons
IT WAS A CIRCLE OF GOLD and they were all inside it.
For a second Raffi knew the vast arena with its treasure was a huge replica of the Coronet; as the Sekoi argued up to its people in the Tongue, he felt the consciousness of the gathered tribes slowly and reluctantly enter it, the sharp anger of the Karamax like seven stabs of pain.
“What’s happening?” Carys muttered. She still had the bow aimed at Solon, but he sat still, as if listening.
“They’re joining in.” Raffi glanced down at the still form that was Kest. “The power of this will be incredible.”
“Like Tasceron?”
“Better.” It was building already, a hum and murmur of energy that abruptly assaulted all his senses; left him blind and deaf until he knew that he was one and many, that the Coronet and the arena were tiny concentric circles far below him, and that this icy silent nothingness was space. It was black, an emptiness, darker than Maar. It stretched into infinity and all their minds together could never reach to the end of it.
Until, like a miracle, something existed.
It was a globe, pale and smooth, bright with reflected light. The curve of its edge was perfect and breathtaking. It hung from nothing. He turned, looking for the others.
They were all around him; the Coronet of Moons, Agramon a little way out of line; impatiently he gave it the slightest nudge back into place and it drifted like a bubble. Raffi smiled.
“It’s a sophisticated form of neural integrator,” someone was saying, but he ignored that, k
nowing that the circle was smooth again, that he wore it like a Coronet, that the mingled lights were in proportion.
Now for the weather. But where was Anara?
Then he knew that he was the planet. He was the world. In his body were all the aches and agonies, the vortexes and storms; he searched for them and flexed them out, absorbed.
“Not Solon!” the wind protested, but he hushed it, smoothing the roaring waves on the beach. Someone was bleeding on the gold moons; he wiped them clean and put them back in the sky. Snow stopped falling into his eyes. Carefully he opened his hands and let the small flowers stir, the trees blossom in the cracks of his palms.
“Bring me a present!” a small voice wailed. So he rolled up winter and threw it away, unfolded a field of gold and spread it like an eiderdown over hills and valleys and mountains. “What a joke,” Marco laughed, from underneath.
And a thin, brown-haired man opened a door in a vortex and stepped out, the storm shriveling behind him. “The others will deal with the rest,” he said. “But you I need to warn. Give me your hand.”
Raffi held it out. Kest took it and turned it over. “Look at this.”
They were deep scars. Seven wounds in his own skin, seven deep pits. He stared at them in horror, at the poison seeping from them; then he gasped with pain, his hand still clutching Kest’s.
But the voice that spoke had a reptilian hiss. And it said:
“Raffi.”
His eyes snapped open.
The arena was cold and empty. A faint breeze drifted over the heaps of gold. On one of them the Margrave sprawled, looking at him.
Its long, jackal-snout was a profile of horror, the moons casting bizarre shadows of its sharp-eared head and dark coat.
“What do you want?” Raffi whispered.
It gave a lipless smile. “You know what. And I was so close! Solon even held the device in his hands, and it was your fault that I lost it. But then, I have learned about so many other things! The Crow! Since my dark creature met Galen at Halenden I have known my ancient enemy was back. Sarres, of course. And the Great Hoard. I’ll send a whole Watchforce to collect this. And now, I have you.”
Raffi shook his head. Terror was creeping over him like an eclipse. “No. No you don’t.”
The Margrave laughed, a harsh rattle. “You and I are linked, Raffi. Ever since you came into my room in your vision you have intrigued me. I learned more about you in those few seconds than you think. We are linked. I have rarely talked with a human soul like this since Kest came to plead with me in my prison.”
Its small eyes stared at him, the lids swiveling like a lizard’s. “I’m going to find you, Raffi. Bring you back to my room. I know you have hidden qualities; your master doesn’t value you enough. I’m sure you’ve often thought that.” Its tongue flickered in a sly grin.
“I need a companion and I have chosen you. You will be my apprentice.”
Raffi gazed at it in utter horror.
Beside him suddenly Carys came back, then Galen, stepping moodily out of the dark. On the ramparts the Sekoi tribes blurred out of nothingness and in the sky the moons came on like Maker-lights.
The Sekoi, tall and astonished, reached up for the Coronet and took it off, staring at the gold ring in amazement.
Only Solon sat on the pile of gold.
The Margrave left him. They almost saw it go, saw the absence creep into his eyes, saw him become in an instant a heartbroken, devastated old man, unable to look at Marco, unable to look at any of them, huddled up and sobbing.
Carys turned away. It was Galen who went and crouched before him.
“Leave me!” the old man moaned, hiding his face. “You see what I’ve done!” His eyes caught the knife handle; Galen moved in front of it
“It’s over,” he whispered. “The evil is gone from you.” Solon looked up, his eyes wide. “I couldn’t keep it out! Dear God, I couldn’t!” His cry was an agony of remorse; he looked imploringly around at them all, rocking with pain. “Three years, Galen. That was how long. Every day, every hour they tormented me. Never letting me sleep or think.” He gripped his hands together. “You can’t imagine how it was. On and on, lights and questions. I couldn’t eat. I forgot who I was. I forgot how to pray.”
“I know.” Galen held him firmly. “It’s over now. We’ll get you to Sarres.”
“And then he came! He explained how I could help him. He spoke softly, and I let him into my mind, Galen, I let him! I couldn’t bear it anymore, the filth, the pain, the darkness. I couldn’t even bear the smell of that room. I wanted him. He made me strong. He gave me power. In the end I was begging him to come.”
There was a bitter silence. Then Galen said harshly, “None of us can judge you until we have been through such a hell. But Mardoc’s Ring. All the things you told us. Were they true?”
“True. But he forced me to tell him. He found the ring and wore it, mocking me. I have betrayed everything I loved! And yet I would still do anything rather than go back to that cell!” Solon clutched his head in despair. Galen watched. When he asked the next question Raffi knew it had been an effort.
“And the child? The one you cured?”
“He did it.” The old man looked up, seeing Galen’s eyes close in despair. “He’s clever, much too clever for us. It’s over. He has all of us now.”
“Galen!” Carys’s voice was sharp. “Look at this.”
Above them, in the air, a door was forming. They stared up at it, Raffi gripping the beads at his neck in silent awe.
A narrow door, with a silver staircase that unfolded silently and smoothly like a ripple of light to the Sekoi’s feet, so that the creature jumped back in alarm.
They waited. No one came down. The door stayed shut.
Around the arena the Sekoi tribes watched in fascination. “Are the Makers here?” Carys asked. She felt a sudden panic, as if she wasn’t ready; she stared at the door as if Flain would open it and walk down. It sparked a sudden memory. “I forgot! He told me something else! He said, ‘Tell the keeper I’ll see him soon.’ ”
“It’s the portal.” Galen’s gaunt face was shadowed, his eyes dark with joy. “Remember? The console said the Coronet could make an emergency portal. This is it! A door to the world of the Makers!”
He gripped the handrail and for a moment Raffi thought he would race up and fling the door wide, the desire so keen in him that Raffi could feel it.
But he didn’t. He jumped down, hauled Solon to his feet, and put his scarred hands roughly on the rail. “You go,” he said.
“Me?” The Archkeeper was aghast. “I betrayed them! I’ve done evil, welcomed evil. I can’t face them!”
“We all have to face them.” Galen stepped back. “No one is turned away. This is your chance to make up for your weakness, Solon! Do it for Marco, for all of us. Get them to come! Tell them how much we need them, that the Unfinished Lands will still spread, that men’s faith has grown cold.”
Solon glanced at the others.
“No!” Carys crossed to Galen and faced him angrily. “It should be you! He’s weak, you said so yourself.”
“Weakness can hide strength.”
“Don’t give me that rubbish!” She glared up at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. “He betrayed us, Galen! You must hate him for that!”
Then he did look. “Not him. And the Crow has work still to do here.” For a moment the hardness of his eyes softened. “Don’t tempt me, Carys,” he whispered.
Shoving her aside he said to Solon, “Go quickly.”
The Archkeeper wiped his face. He took a small bronze ring off his finger and dropped it into Galen’s hand. “Choose a better Archkeeper,” he whispered, and turned and climbed the stairs as if each one was an effort of will. When he reached the top, the door slid open.
And for a second they glimpsed another world; a pale sky, green fields, a warm breeze that lifted Solon’s hair as he walked fearfully into it, fluttering his coat in a scent of alien leaves, lighting his face so
that in the instant before he vanished he seemed young, laughed, held his hands out to someone, and Galen had taken two steps after him before the door closed and the light was gone and the staircase dissolved into moon-shimmer.
It was very quiet in the arena. The snow had stopped. In the black sky the moons hung, each in its appointed place. “I wish Marco could have seen that,” Carys muttered.
She bent and picked up a leaf that lay there and handed it to Galen. It was long and narrow, some sort of willow, Raffi thought. And alien.
“It seems to me,” the Sekoi purred, looking up at Agramon, “that I moved her.”
“It was me.” Carys threw the bow down.
“Me,” Raffi said.
“All of us.” The Sekoi stared at the Coronet. “How can I tell you how it felt? Like the joining of many stories, all at once.” It looked up, yellow eyes sharp. “The Karamax are coming down.”
“Will they let us go?” Carys asked.
It shrugged, laying the Coronet reverently between Kest’s hands. “It may be they will. Things have changed now.” Suddenly remembering, it took off its money belt and emptied a stream of coins onto the heap. They tinkled and rolled. “Though I fear all this must be moved to a more secret place.” It looked at Carys sidelong. “I have to say, Carys, that I have been wrong. I am sorry.”
She nodded. “So you should be. Mind you, at one point I suspected you.” She grinned at Raffi, who was pale and still. The Sekoi turned. “And you, Galen, don’t let the darkness fill your soul. Despite the deaths, we have achieved our aim.”
The Relic Master came forward. He put both hands down and gripped Kest’s coffin, and Raffi felt a sudden sickening jolt of terror.
“Galen!” he muttered.
The keeper’s face was harsh and set. “I swear,” he said, “by Kest and Flain and all the Makers. By all the Moons. By all the Books of the Order . . .”
“Galen, don’t!”
“. . . By all that I’ve ever believed—I swear the Crow will hunt the Margrave down into the deepest pit of hell for this.”
His fists clenched. “And when I find him there, I’ll kill him. Because of what he did to Solon. And for Marco.”
The Hidden Coronet #3 Page 18