She stood at the table and studied the map of the Shessian world. To the west was ocean. To the south were Beranix’s kingdom and more oceans. North led to more kingdoms and rugged mountains, and colder lands. To the east were still more kingdoms and mountains. The world was so much larger than she had ever imagined in Summerbrook. Before Follower and Seer Truth’s purge, the Royal library had contained books that showed there were more lands beyond the margins of the Shessian map. Western Shess was a small kingdom. Summerbrook was merely a dot in that kingdom. And she was nothing at all on the map.
She opened her tunic and touched the faint discolouration on her chest. It wasn’t a Blessing. It was a curse. In her stupidity she’d melded it into herself and now she had to carry the legacy for the rest of her life. Now she understood why Samuel had hidden for so many years in the cave above Summerbrook. She understood why her father had come to Shess from the east and changed his name, and why he tried to keep her ignorant of her past. The amber crystal brought nothing but death and despair. She did not belong in this alien world of war, religious passion and political intrigue. She went to a window and gazed across the Palace courtyard and walls at the distant city rooftops. The afternoon sun highlighted the ridges with a faint splash of gold, but the rest was darkening. She belonged in Summerbrook, with her family. She’d been caught up in the euphoria of a life that belonged to the wandering minstrels who entertained townsfolk and villagers with their tales of heroes and magic and fabled beasts, and she had almost believed that it was a wonderful life. It wasn’t. It came at a terrible and tragic cost. Sighing, she turned from the dying light and headed for her chamber to pack. She would tell the Queen her decision, and tomorrow she would begin the long return to her home—without Sunfire padding in her shadow—without her son.
‘You’re making a mistake.’
Meg shrugged. ‘I can’t stay here any longer. I have to go home.’
The Queen shook her head, her anger and disappointment competing. ‘If you have such power, you also have a responsibility to use it,’ she argued.
‘I have a responsibility to use it wisely, and only if I need to use it,’ Meg replied. ‘Using it to kill your enemies is neither wise nor necessary. Let your Seers do that.’
‘But I need you, Meg,’ Sunset insisted. ‘Without your support, my position is not secure. People are constantly plotting against me. Future’s gone north to raise another army, with Truth and Light’s support. How will I stop them?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meg said quietly. ‘Perhaps it’s time you made peace with Diamond and the others. I can’t help you.’
‘I could stop you from leaving,’ Sunset warned.
‘You could.’
Meg’s calm acceptance infuriated the Queen. She thumped her fist against her hip and strode towards the door as if she intended to call the Elite Guards, but she halted before she reached it, caught between thoughts. She looked at Meg, and asked, ‘Don’t you want to see Jon again?’
The reference to her son unsettled Meg. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Future has him,’ Sunset said. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Truth took him as insurance against you helping me. They have bargaining power.’
‘Then they will use me against you,’ Meg suggested, ‘which makes me even more dangerous to you if I stay. I have to go.’
‘Back to your village? Do you think you can hide there? Truth knows where you came from. How long will he let you stay there with the Conduit, Meg? How long? A cycle? A year perhaps?’ Sunset looked up at the tall young woman. ‘From what I understand about your precious sliver of amber, the Seers will stop at nothing to get hold of it. Where can you hide? Answer me that.’
Meg had no answer. She wanted to say, ‘I’ll take my chances,’ but she knew she would be taking a stupid chance.
‘Go back to Summerbrook and Truth will come after you, and you’ll put your entire family in danger,’ Sunset warned.
‘So what do I do?’
The Queen smiled briefly, as if relieved to hear the question. ‘Stay here. Wait until Future or Truth make their first move.’
‘But that might not be for a long time.’
‘I don’t think we’ll have long to wait. It’s almost Shahk. It will be well into next Akim before Future can even begin to raise a credible army, and to do that he’ll have to convince one of the northern kings to back his claim to my throne. And that will take some serious negotiation because he’s already suffered a major defeat at my hands.’
‘So you’re talking half a year, or longer. That gives me time to go home and see my family.’
‘It will not take that long for my son to begin a war,’ Sunset explained. ‘He’ll begin negotiating much sooner than that.’ She took Meg’s hands in her own as she often did, and said, ‘Stay for the Shahk season. If we don’t hear from Future, go home for the Akim months and wait for me to call you back. That’s all I ask.’
The request was not what Meg wanted to hear. She simply wanted to go home and stay there, in peace. But the Queen’s argument made sense. The Seers would not leave her in peace while they knew she had the Conduit. It was a curse. ‘I’ll stay until the end of Shahk,’ Meg agreed. Sunset embraced her.
The Seer was Truth. She knew it without seeing his face. He stood on the cliff top as he had in the other dreams and he was laughing at her. In his arms he held a bundle, a tiny baby. The scene, to her, wasn’t quite as it ought to be. Jon was older now than a baby in swaddling cloths. It wasn’t her baby. How could it be? Truth was mouthing words to her but she couldn’t hear him, as if the sea wind was sweeping away the sound. And then the Seer turned and threw the baby over the edge.
Her heart was pounding. She didn’t want that dream repeated. When Truth had stolen Jon, she thought she understood the dream that she had until then as a metaphor—the baby falling really meaning how she had lost Jon. So why was she still having the dream? Whisper stirred on the bed and climbed up to snuggle into her arms. ‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘Why this dream still?’
The afternoon downpour trapped her under the eaves of a small stone building at the edge of the palace grounds, near the entry to the Jarudhan temple. She had taken her walk for exercise, hoping that the dark clouds would hold off, but the rain came quickly and drove her to shelter. The building was reserved for the palace cooks and cleaners. She knocked, but when no one answered she tested the handle, discovered the door was unlocked, and entered. The common room was empty, and the building quiet. The rain made a soothing sound on the thatched roof. Accepting that she would be saturated if she tried to get back into the palace, she sank onto a wooden chair and decided to wait. She regretted agreeing to stay in Port of Joy. Sunset had made her personal struggle to keep her throne Meg’s problem, and it wasn’t her problem at all. But staying did mean that there was a chance of seeing her son again—a chance to get him back from his kidnappers—and for that reason alone she had to stay. Her hands twitched with memories of holding baby Jon close to her breast. Tears flowed down her cheeks. The stomping feet startled her and she stood quickly, wiping away her tears.
The door swung open and Seer Diamond entered, shaking raindrops from his drenched blue robe. He stiffened when he saw Meg. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, and cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘I didn’t expect you either,’ she replied.
Diamond wiped the moisture from his face with his damp sleeve, and crossed to the fireplace. ‘Surprised you haven’t got this going,’ he said, and he squatted to cast a fire spell. Satisfied the wood had taken, he straightened up. ‘I heard you were still here.’
‘I wanted to go home,’ she said.
‘Then why didn’t you?’
‘My son.’
Diamond rubbed his hands together and shook his head. ‘Lost cause. Truth isn’t one for compromise.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
He frowned as he looked directly at her. ‘You will, Amber.’
‘Meg,’ sh
e said.
The Seer’s brows furrowed as he comprehended her simple reply. ‘Meg. As you wish. Amber belonged to Jarudha anyway.’
‘And I don’t.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’
The silence settled between them and Meg wished the rain would ease so that she could escape from the Seer’s stifling presence. Diamond stood over the fire, his hands extended. ‘You know he wants the Conduit,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘You could just give it to him.’ Diamond turned to look at her, waiting for her answer.
‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
She smiled humourlessly. ‘Then the Queen hasn’t told you?’
‘Told me what?’ he demanded irritably. She untied the cord on her black cloak and began to unlace her tunic. ‘Don’t be crass,’ Diamond protested.
Meg ignored his discomfort and exposed the amber discolouration between her breasts, saying, ‘I am the Conduit.’
Diamond seemed confused, until she saw realisation spread across his face and his eyebrows rose. ‘That’s the Conduit?’ he asked. She nodded. He exhaled and shook his head. ‘What have you done?’
‘What I had to do,’ she said, as she closed her tunic and tightened the laces. ‘I can’t let Truth, or any of you, have this. I know the truth.’
Diamond approached her, his expression hardening. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Seer Newday. The Legend of the Demon Horsemen. I’ve read it.’
Diamond betrayed recognition of the text in his eyes, and although he tried to mask his reaction Meg had seen it. ‘Never heard of it, or anyone called Newday,’ he said abruptly.
‘“The man who lies when the truth is already known is nothing but a ghost.”’
Diamond stared at her angrily. ‘You’re always quick to throw scripture, aren’t you? Perhaps one day you might even get it right.’
‘I only quote what I learned in the temple,’ she sarcastically replied.
‘Whatever means you used to hide the Conduit inside you, you’ve made a terrible error of judgement, young woman,’ Diamond warned. ‘Truth is nothing like me. When he learns this, by Jarudha’s Holy Word, you’ll rue it. You’ll never see your son again.’
The threat against Jon angered her. She stood over the old Seer, glaring down on him with her green eyes narrowed, and said, ‘I will see my son again, and I promise you that Truth will be the one ruing what he’s done.’ She didn’t wait for his reply. She stormed out of the quarters, slamming the door as she strode across the veranda. No one could see her tears in the rain.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The Shahk rains came early and were heavy. As well drained as they were, the palace grounds struggled with the volume of water that poured incessantly for days. Meg spent her time reading in the library, walking through the palace, and exploring the Royal museum. The artefacts had fascinated her when Follower first showed her the vast Royal collection, but she had had little opportunity to study them, so their true value was unknown to her. But her reading opened an interest in searching the museum for artefacts mentioned in the texts. As she expected, she found none of the items that the writers described—but she found something far more curious. And she found it not by sight but by feeling its presence.
Wandering one afternoon through the enormous and jumbled collection of armour and weapons gathered through the ages, she felt a familiar rush along her spine as she passed a pile of rusted and broken metal implements—the tingling sensation that alerted her to the presence of magic. What surprised her was the intensity. She checked the whereabouts of her evervigilant Elite Guards and when she established that they were engrossed in looking through the weaponry, discussing and comparing the merits of older and foreign swords and bows, she knelt and foraged through dented shields, broken swords, miscellaneous sections of armoured suits, hessian bags of assorted metal and leather pieces. She glanced up regularly to ensure that the Elite Guards didn’t surprise her, until she reached an old beige canvas sack. The instant that she touched the sack the rush of magic almost made her faint. Checking that the Guards were still entertaining themselves, she lifted the sack out of the rubbish pile and carried it to a small display cabinet.
She explored the outline of its contents with her fingers, the magic thrilling along her arm and down her spine, and established that it was probably a sword hilt. To her dismay, a rusted padlock sealed the sack. Scratches and chips suggested that someone had tried unsuccessfully to break it open. The sack was dirty but unmarked, so whoever had tried to get to the contents hadn’t resorted to ripping the sack, and that puzzled her. Why, having found the sack and not being able to break the padlock, hadn’t someone simply cut it open? But perhaps the answer was already obvious. The tingling in her fingers told her that the sack and the padlock were magical. Whatever sword hilt the sack contained, someone must have considered it extremely valuable to use a magical container and lock to protect it.
The Guards were strolling along the armoury. They looked towards her and she waved to show that she was happy and safe. After they smiled back and continued their exploration, she slipped off her vest and wrapped the sack inside. She could probably just as easily ask the Queen if she could study the sack, but she was curious because no one else would have felt the magic as she felt it. The Conduit gave her that advantage, so she wanted to explore the sack in private, in case its contents proved useless to anyone except her. Besides, she had no desire for the Seers to know if the sack’s contents proved to be magical, and, if the Queen knew, there was a possibility that the Seers would find out.
She dismissed her servants when she returned to her chamber, and placed the sack on a table. Whisper emerged with her usual curiosity and tried to climb Meg’s trouser leg. ‘Nuisance!’ Meg growled, but she lifted the rat onto the table. Whisper sniffed the bag and leapt off.
Bad formed in Meg’s head.
Why? she asked.
Bad Whisper projected again, and headed for the rug before the fireplace. Whisper’s reaction tempered Meg’s interest and enthusiasm, and gave her a dilemma. To what had the rat reacted? The sack? The magic? Or the sack’s contents? Confidence gone, she shifted the sack from the table and hid it under a cabinet near the window, deciding that it would be prudent to read more texts to see if anyone wrote about a magical sack.
Throughout dinner with Queen Sunset, she was distracted by thoughts of the sack. The Queen told her that she’d sent spies in search of Future and the Seers, and learned that Future had landed in several northern ports before taking refuge in King Ironfist’s capital, Storm. ‘I expect we’ll hear something from my son very soon,’ she said. ‘Ironfist’s grandfather was humiliated by my father forty years ago in a sea and land battle over the island of Last Land. He’d enjoy any opportunity to exact revenge on my family.’
Meg was glad to leave the Queen’s chambers early, despite Sunset’s insistence that she stay and relax with her. The sack was drawing her. In her room again, she waited patiently for the handmaidens to close the curtains and roll back her bedclothes, before she dismissed the girls. She retrieved the sack from its hiding place and placed it on the table to examine it closely. The padlock looked ordinary. Without a padlock key, she would have to force it open, or perhaps conjure an unmaking spell, but she first needed a spell to dissipate the magic securing it. The Ashuak text, The Dark Spells, contained information on spells of unmaking aimed specifically at magic, but it had been burned on the island where Seer Truth abandoned her, and she had only managed to learn simple spells for unmaking physical objects like knots. No similar texts survived in the library.
She went to her chamber door and asked the Elite Guards for a dagger. Ignoring their quizzical looks as one guard offered his weapon, she took it and returned to the table. Hacking and poking at the sack was like using the blade on hardened plate armour. The canvas was impervious. She wondered how frustrated the original finders of the sack must have become when
they discovered that there was no ordinary way to open it. Only magic could undo magic. And there was Whisper’s reaction to remember. The rat didn’t like the sack, and her judgement had always been accurate. Meg stared at the beige sack for a long time.
In the end she slid it under her bed for safekeeping and went to her window to gaze at the palace and city lights.
She remembered getting into bed, but not the point of falling asleep. Now she stood before the green shaft of light and there was a dark mass at its centre. Oddly, she couldn’t discern any form to the mass, but she knew it had to be the carving of a black dragon with a man brutally pinned to it by axes and bound with wire.
Get me out of here and I can give you answers, the voice whispered in her head.
I don’t know how, she said.
It’s a glyph, the voice told her. You can break it down.
I don’t understand, she pleaded.
You’re my only hope, the voice replied. If you can’t do this, no one can.
Who are you? she asked.
You know who I am.
She opened her mouth to say that she had no idea who belonged to the voice, but her words wouldn’t form. And then she felt more than saw blue light seeping into her dream, and they were both there, battleaxes in their hands, shining with their blue aura, advancing on her.
The Amber Legacy Page 42