“Or a wave,” said Behenna. “A wave of ingenious clockwork driven by the wind.”
“There were thousands of them! All over the desert!”
Shilly could barely picture the image Tait was painting for her. “Here? This desert?”
“Maybe. They certainly had them in the Strand, once, up north by the Divide.”
“Do any of them still exist?”
“I don’t know about that.” Tait looked at Behenna for the answer.
“The stories about them date back a long way,” the warden supplied, “and they were considered ancient even then. But there might be working survivors somewhere. Perhaps here. I can’t see why not.”
Shilly looked around her, at the horizon, half-expecting one of the strange machines to appear at any moment, still marching endlessly nowhere. It was a peculiar thought: unnerving and exciting at the same time.
“Who made them?”
“No one remembers,” Behenna said, “but the things themselves were called strandbeasts. That much we do know.”
“If we had one now,” said Tait, “we could sail the desert like we do the sea. No more camels; no more smelly drivers; no more lugging fuel around for machines like this old thing. All you’d have to do was point it in the right direction, then sit back and relax. The wind would do the work for us.”
He reclined in his chair as though imagining himself on such a voyage. Behenna slowed the buggy to avoid running up the back of the wagon in front. The warden was a reasonable driver, but heavy on the accelerator. He was constantly in a hurry, as though full of impatience he could barely contain. It was obvious to Shilly that, had he been able to convince Sal to ride with them, he would have left the caravan behind to travel at speed for the Nine Stars, and waited there for everyone else to catch up.
But Sal had refused, even when Behenna had offered to let him drive. Shilly could tell that the sight of the buggy in the warden’s possession had upset him, but she didn’t understand why he was being so stubborn about it. Had she been in his position she might have taken the chance to enjoy it one last time, even if she refused to have anything else to do with the Sky Warden who now owned it. He had sold the buggy in good faith and Behenna had bought it on the same terms; Sal couldn’t fairly expect it back, just like that. And despite Tait’s best efforts at keeping her entertained, she wasn’t entirely comfortable driving with the Sky Warden and his journeyman without Sal as well.
The thought of Sal cast a pall over the conversation. There were a lot of things she didn’t understand about him, and she had told herself that she was no longer going to try to work him out. It wasn’t easy, though. His decision not to speak before the Judges had made her realise just how stubborn he was. She had assumed he was coasting along behind her burning desire to get to Skender Van Haasteren, but it might not have been that way at all. She remembered little things, like the way he had got past Behenna at the Divide without consulting her. They had been working together, hadn’t they? Not all the time, apparently. She wondered how far she would have lasted with him had she not wanted to go north in the first place. She might have found herself abandoned in the middle of nowhere while he followed his own counsel, alone.
Then there were his secrets: about the globe and the way Behenna had helped save her life by the ravine. She knew that she had told him “no blame” about the accident itself, but she wasn’t sure how completely blameless he really was, now. Everything had gone wrong since he had come into her life. She had told him once that she didn’t want to be dragged into his family curse, and with every day she was leaning more toward the opinion that that had been the right attitude to take all along.
“Did you learn about these things in the Haunted City?” she asked, trying to recapture the spirit of the conversation.
“In a book called Historical Artefacts and Ruins,” Tait said. “There are lots of amazing things lying around out there, Shilly. You should see them. Talking statues like the ones they have up here; ice that never melts; crystals that reveal views of far-off places; and weapons that can kill people without even touching them. You have to be very, very careful in the wilds of the Strand.”
“You’ve been Surveying?” she asked, hoping her envy wasn’t as obvious as it felt.
“Not personally, no.” He looked uncomfortable for a moment. “But there are museums bigger than Fundelry, full of stuff the Surveyors brought back. You’d love it!”
She was certain she would. It sounded much more exciting than theory and meditation at the Keep.
Tait reached down for his water bottle and swigged from it. Scowling up at the sun as though it had personally offended him, he poured a measure of the precious liquid over his face and revelled in its coolness. Shilly could sympathise. She was sweating like a fish. The day had been a long one, for the caravan had fallen slightly behind schedule. The camels were jittery, and Zevan was wary enough of their nerves to lengthen rest stops throughout the day. If they were going to reach the Nine Stars before the following evening, they were going to have to push on through part of the night. The thought dismayed her.
Shilly wasn’t looking forward to spending any more time on the back of the buggy than she had to, no matter who kept her company. She had considered moving into one of the wagons for the extra space to stretch her leg, but Tait and Behenna had talked her out of it.
“I’m sick of this place,” the journeyman had said the previous day, near Three Wells, after she had admitted to him that, no, there was no one in the caravan who knew anything much about where she and Tait had come from. Not even Sal, for he had come from the borderlands. “I can’t wait to get home and have some decent food. I’d kill for a nice fish fillet. Not to mention decent clothes.” He looked disdainfully down at the robes he was wearing. “Whoever thought something like this would make sense in a desert must have been crazy.”
“It stops your sweat evaporating too quickly,” said the warden, “and saves you from dehydration.”
“I don’t care about that. It’s hot, and I’m still thirsty. If the sea was right here, I’d throw it all off and go for a swim.” He looked longingly at the mirages dancing on the horizon. “If only…”
Indeed, Shilly had thought, wondering how Vita the serving girl would have reacted to that sight. Probably swoon, she decided.
“The rest of them might take it badly if you did that,” she had said.
“So?” Tait had kneeled on the passenger seat to face her. “You’re with us, now. What does it matter what they think?”
His vehemence had surprised her.
“I may not fully subscribe to my young friend’s summary of the situation,” Behenna had said, “but in essence he’s right about how frustrating it is. Although we are travelling of our own accord, we are in effect captives of their system. We have no alternative but to go to the Nine Stars. Should we decide not to, for whatever reason, we will be held in contempt. Their ridiculous legal process has forced us into something we shouldn’t have to do, in order to do the right thing. Which is, of course, to get you home again, where you belong.”
She wanted to ask him how he could be so certain where she belonged, when she herself was having doubts. It wasn’t Fundelry itself she missed—not really. The town had been claustrophobically small and its people petty-minded. Apart from a few of Lodo’s friends, there was little there she actually wanted back in her life. What she missed was the idea of home, of a place where she could feel safe and loved, an environment she found familiar. She had hoped that the Mage Van Haasteren might provide her with such a place, but she now realised that hope to have been naive. Nowhere in the Interior so far had even come close to meeting that expectation. It was too hot, and the food tasted weird to her still. And the mage had never been more than a distant figure at best.
But was it really a home she was after? She remembered thinking before leaving Ulum that Lodo had been all the family she had ever needed. A father figure, friend and teacher, the old man had been there for
her for most of her life, and it was him she missed more than Fundelry, the sea or the Strand as a whole. More than anything else, she wanted to reel back time and go back to the days before Sal and his father arrived, and her world had been turned inside out.
She doubted the Sky Warden could offer her that. But would a new family fill the same need?
Tait poked her in the side and she snapped back to the present. He had been talking about museums and her mind had wandered.
“I said it would be great to take you there, one day,” he repeated, and she nodded. Yes, she thought, it would be great—but what about the Keep and her studies?
“You don’t look convinced,” he said, poking her again. “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
“I…” She didn’t finish the sentence, being unsure if she had completed her first thought, let alone her second, or was, in fact, so confused that she’d reached her third or fourth without even noticing. It was great that Tait had come back into her life and befriended her; she hadn’t realised how lonely she had become, and how much of her life revolved around Sal’s concerns rather than her own. But she didn’t entirely agree with some of what the warden and his journeyman said, and that made her wonder again what her concerns actually were. Simply finding the Mage Van Haasteren obviously hadn’t eased them.
“Go easy on her, Tait,” said Behenna. “She’s nervous, and you can’t blame her for that. If I’d been through what she’s been through—stolen from my home, injured, taken to a strange place where I didn’t know anyone—I’d be a little unsure of things, too.”
“It’s just…” Again, she faltered, remembering the clear sense of threat that she and Sal had run from after his father had died. Lodo had sacrificed himself so they, or at least Sal, could get away. Should that be so easily forgotten?
It all came down to what she actually wanted. Was it the Change alone, or something more fundamental? Perhaps the answer was as simple as control over her own life, the ability to make her own decisions without having to worry about someone else.
She took a deep breath. “I came here to look for a teacher,” she said, trying to sound strong, “and I found one.”
“A Stone Mage,” sneered Tait.
“I didn’t have any other options. He was all I had.”
“And you’re reluctant to give that up so soon.” Behenna nodded. “I understand. But remember the old saying: a bad beginning leads to a bad ending. You must take everything into account before you head along this path. If you don’t learn correctly, you will learn badly. Trust me.”
The Sky Warden’s eyes were on the road, but Shilly felt herself being weighed by him nonetheless.
“I think it’s time we found you a proper teacher,” he said. “Back home, I mean. In the Haunted City.”
For a moment she goggled at him. “But—but I don’t have the Change.”
“That’s no impediment. You know that Sal’s father was a journeyman, and he didn’t have a drop of the Change in him. Nor does your friend Tom at the moment. He was Selected as much for his intelligence as his latent talent. Why shouldn’t you be treated the same way?”
“No one’s wanted to before,” she said, remembering the Selectors and their assistants who had come through Fundelry and never paid her the slightest attention.
“That was clearly a mistake,” the warden said, “one I am keen to rectify. Lodo kept you hidden from us for too long, and when you did come to our attention, Amele Centofanti proved too incompetent to realise what she’d found. That’s why I replaced her—and why, also, I am here, doing this for you. As much as I disagree with their methods, I respect the opinions of people like Lodo and Mage Van Haasteren. They both saw something in you that had potential, something that slipped through our net. I don’t want to lose you, Shilly—what you could be. You deserve us just as much as we deserve you.”
This was all a bit too much for her to take in one chunk. “Lodo Tested me with the Scourge of Aneshti. He said I should be taught along the ways of air and water, but that I could learn his way because I had no talent of my own.” She thought of the word Skender had used—Taking—and flushed. “I use what other people offer. It’s what they have that counts, not what I would have had if I had any.”
“That’s true,” Behenna admitted, “but it always works better if inclinations match. Have you never tried to do it with someone trained our way?”
She shook her head. Apart from the village seer, Aunty Merinda, she had only ever borrowed the talent belonging to Lodo, Sal and those in the Keep who would let her. Aunty Merinda had had little enough of her own that there hadn’t been much for Shilly to use. Maybe there simply hadn’t been enough for her to notice the difference.
“You should try it,” the warden said. “Tait, let her use you.”
The journeyman nodded and offered her his hand. Confronted with it, she didn’t know what to do. The night of the light-sink was still fresh in her mind. It had been so easy to keep Taking Sal’s wild talent, even though she had known it was the wrong thing to do. She hadn’t tried it with anyone since the day after, when Skender had loaned her his talent to cover for the fact that she didn’t want to use Sal’s. Did she dare do it without him around?
But that was just stupid, she told herself. She couldn’t rely on Skender for the rest of her life. She had to learn to trust herself at some point—and it was only Sal she had promised not to use again.
She took Tait’s hand and held it gently in hers, wondering nervously what would happen next.
“Here.” The warden slipped the torc from around his neck and gave it to her. She took it with her other hand and held it even more gingerly than she did Tait.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” said the warden. “It won’t hurt you. The torcs contain a variety of charms woven into the glass, in the same way that Stone Mages capture charms in their tattoos. Every warden makes something like this to demonstrate their skill in particular areas.” She nodded. “See the bubbles? Pick one and stare at it. Concentrate as hard as you can. Now think of a bath full of water and lie in it. Let the water accept you and roll over you. Sink into it and float for a moment. Then open your eyes.”
Shilly did exactly as the warden said. She had never been in a bath containing enough water to float outstretched, so she imagined the sea instead. It was a still, cool day and the sun floated high and pale above her. The water was welcoming and familiar as it rose around her. She took a deep breath and went under. The sun receded and the air fell away above her. For a moment, she felt as though she was rising, not falling—floating face up into a dark, starless sky.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place she had never visited before. She was high up—on a balcony, she presumed—and looking out over a city of glass towers that reminded her of the one she and Sal had found in the Broken Lands, only this one was inhabited. Walkways and staircases connected the towers like silver threads, glinting in the sun. People moved along them, and behind the many glass windows, everywhere she looked. Men and women, even children, all going about their errands with a sense of purpose that made her feel, although she had no real reason to, that they would ignore her if she tried to talk to them. They were aloof, these people: remote, isolated, apart. She knew somehow that she could never be one of them.
With an effort, she tore her eyes away from the people in the buildings and had barely noticed two things—that the sun to her right was setting into a bright blue sea, and that she appeared to be standing on thin air—when the image was suddenly gone. It faded into blue like a cloud burned away by the sun.
She blinked and was back on the buggy, clutching Tait in one hand and the Sky Warden’s torc in the other.
“Did you see it?” Behenna asked.
“I did. A city…”
“The Haunted City through the eyes of a seagull. Impressive, isn’t it?”
She nodded, even though elements of the vision bothered her. The people she had seen: were they the inhabi
tants of the city—the wardens, the members of the Conclave and the families they came from—or were they the ghosts the city was named after? Where was the golden tower, the one Kemp had to be careful of, according to a warning the Change had granted her? And why did Manton Gourlay describe the city as “so beautiful, yet so ugly at the same time” when it was so unambiguously the most incredible place she had ever seen?
She didn’t know, and that ignorance bothered her. It was easy to create illusions of things that weren’t real.
“You’re saying I could go there?” she asked.
“Absolutely. You have the potential to learn even if you don’t have the Change itself. You’re clever and you’re not afraid to aspire to what you want. Are you, Shilly? I see the look in your eyes when we talk about the Change. I know what you want more than anything else—and you can have it. We will give it to you freely. All you have to do is come home with us, and it’s yours.”
Shilly was so hypnotised by the warden’s words that she didn’t notice that she was still holding Tait’s hand. Whether Behenna’s illusion of the Haunted City was true or false didn’t matter: the thought that she would see it with her own eyes was even more amazing. But it would mean leaving the Keep. It might mean leaving Sal, if the Synod decided in his favour.
The journeyman cleared his throat and she let him free with a jerk.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No worries, really.” Tait smiled and took the torc from her.
“Did you feel how easy that was, Shilly?” asked the warden. “That was because you and Tait match. You resonate nicely together. I think you’ll agree that it’s easier this way.”
It was true. She hadn’t even noticed that she was using Tait’s talent. It had all happened as naturally as though it was her own. Was this, she wondered, what Sal took for granted? What any of the naturally gifted lived with every day? If so, she envied them even more deeply. It was like dreaming she had wings and waking full of the joy of flight, only to be dashed to the ground when reality asserted itself again.
The Sky Warden and the Sun Page 31