The Dark City

25

The leaves of the trees shall cry out for joy, for behold, the stars have spoken.

Apocalypse of Tamar

GALEN STARED AT HER; their eyes met. He stepped back, until the Crow was on the table between them, and he spread his hands over it. For Raffi it was a moment of black despair. She had told them. It was all over.

Then the light went dim. The Watchmen looked around uneasily.

“Take your hands off that device,” the castellan called sharply.

Galen looked up. His face was wild and triumphant. “Too late,” he said.

The thought-bolts burst from him like fire; they exploded among the Watchmen, who yelled and scattered and dropped their bows. Two turned and ran. The doors slammed tight.

“Pick those weapons up!” the castellan raged. He grabbed one, raised it, and shot the bolt straight at Galen. Raffi gave a strangled yell, but the bolt had already burst into brilliant flames of green and black; then it shattered, sending pieces crashing across the hall.

Astonished, the Watchmen stood still.

“Take their weapons,” Galen said harshly.

After a second, the Sekoi pushed past him. It snatched the bows quickly from the men’s hands, gripping them with its seven fingers, a wide, happy smirk on its face. Then it dumped the pile against the wall and stood over them.

“What . . . who are you?” the castellan muttered.

The lights flickered, turned green. Galen was standing upright above the device; power from it filled him, flowed from him; he was flooded with it, Raffi could feel it, a wild, exulting joy that surged out of him.

“I am the Crow,” he breathed. His voice was raw and strange; in the brightness his eyes were black.

Raffi found himself trembling, shaking with fear, his hands clutched in the sign of blessing. The Sekoi crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder.

It was Carys who answered, tense with excitement. “How can you be?”

Galen was taller, his face dark and hooked. Energy surged through him in crackles and sparks of color; Raffi saw blue and purple and silver threads of it flicker through the dark. Immense shadow loomed behind him, seeming to rustle and flap.

“I am the Crow! I have been buried too long in the dark,” he cried, and his voice was harsh, both Galen’s and yet changed. “Now I arise and look, Anara, I have summoned your Makers back to you; through the darkness and emptiness I call them! In ships of silver and crystal they’ll come, Flain and Tamar and Soren of the trees—even Kest will come—and they will dispel the darkness and scatter the towers of the Watch. This is the prophecy I make! This is the truth I speak! They have told me they will come, and no one will stand against them!”

He flung out his hands; the shadows jerked wide. All around him the walls were hissing and sprouting; Raffi saw that the trees were alive, growing, slithering out leaves and fruit. The Watchmen called out, some of them crumpled on the floor, terrified, and behind them the great doors thrummed with a strange electric hum, and the symbols on them glowed green and gold.

And then with a yell of delight, Galen made the seven moons, and they came to him with sparks of power out of the dark; Pyra and Agramon, Atterix, the pitted face of Cyrax, Lar, Karnos, the craters of Atelgar. And they moved in their right patterns—the Web, the Ring, the Arch—and Raffi laughed aloud to see them, and the Sekoi purred behind him, its hand clutching his shoulder tight.

As if he could never tire of it, Galen poured out his newfound power; he made sense-lines that snaked and tangled, brilliant flashes of scents, rivers and rainbows of energy that spurted and crackled and lit every one of the thousand candles with one enormous roar of flame.

And then suddenly he was still, and the room shimmered and glinted into silence. The lamps flickered, grew brighter. They saw they were in a room of leaves; millions of fresh green leaves that smelled like spring, and yet fruit hung there too, and great helios flowers.

The Watchmen were lying crumpled up against the door. Carys sat near them. She seemed too astonished to speak, but she was awake, and as Raffi came toward her, she staggered up unsteadily.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded, silent.

Galen followed them. He looked tired, the crow-black hair hung to his neck, but the very air about him still seemed to crackle.

“How did you know?” He gripped her hands. “How did you know, Carys?”

Her eyes widened, as if his touch burned. “I don’t . . . I’m not sure. I just . . . felt that you could.”

“But you went over to them—” Raffi began.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I had to do something. Did you think I meant it?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at her. “I don’t know what you are anymore.”

She glared back, furious. “Well, neither do I, Raffi! Everything was simple before I met you! Everything was clear! The Order were frauds and fanatics and the Watch were my family and I wanted Galen Harn, dead or alive!”

She stared down at her hands. “That’s all gone now. Nothing’s the same. If the Order’s powers are real, the Watch has lied to me, to all of us. I’ve got friends there, good friends. I won’t leave them to be made fools of.”

“If you go back,” Galen said quietly, “they may see your doubts. I think you should stay with us, Carys.”

She looked at him, a long, hard look. Then she hugged herself with her arms and said, “I can’t.”

“Keeper, you can’t let her go back,” the Sekoi put in, getting up from its corner. “Her or any of them. They’ve seen where your holy place is.”

“I have the power,” Galen said softly, “to wipe that from their minds.” Ignoring Raffi’s stare, he said, “And for the men I’ll do that. But for you . . .”

Stepping forward, he faced her. “Now it’s my turn to make an act of faith. Keep the knowledge. It will work inside you, Carys. It will draw you back to us. One day.”

Wanly, she smiled. “Always trying to convert the fallen, Galen.”

He nodded. “But come soon. The Makers will arrive, and I’d hate them to find you with the Watch.”

“The Watch are my father and mother.” She shook her head. “Or I thought so. But I can’t wipe that training out. I need to think about things, find out what’s true.”

“You never will. But ask your questions carefully. If they think—”

“I know.” She pulled a face. “I’ve seen people disappear. I know what happens to them, better than you.”

He looked at her for a moment with a look that was new to him, then turned away. Bending over the Watchmen, he said something, and to Raffi’s surprise they all stood up, but there was no consciousness in them, no memory.

“Lead them through the maze,” he said to the Sekoi. “They’ll follow you.

“Keeper . . . !”

“Don’t worry. They’re not dangerous.”

With a wry grimace at Raffi, the creature shrugged and turned. The doors opened and the Sekoi walked through, the Watchmen following in a cowed, obedient huddle. None of them looked back.

Galen glanced around. “No power is left here. But the House will be sealed, and the secret kept.” He glanced at Carys. “No one must know.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, picking a crossbow off the pile. “They’ll only get it out of me on the rack.”

“It might come to that,” Raffi muttered.

He followed Galen through the doors, with one look back at the room of leaves, and then trudged thoughtfully through the maze. At one corner he turned and waited for Carys.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” He felt awkward. “But I’m confused. Whose side are you really on, Carys?”

She caught his arm, swung him around, and pushed him ahead of her. “My side. And that’s where I stay till I’ve decided.” He felt her grin at his back. “You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”

He turned, blocking the way. “If you betray him, I’ll hunt you down myself. I’d never forgive you.”

Silent, she nodded. “I know,” she whispered.

He walked on, grim, wondering if it was true, or if she would go straight to the Watch and tell them everything. Galen thought not. Galen with all his powers back—and more. Galen, who had been the Crow, and had prophesied the future of the world.

“We’ll have to write this down,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Coming to the stairs he ran up in the dark, suddenly happy. “Nothing.”

Outside in the dim square the Sekoi sat impatiently on a low wall, chewing its nails. The Watchmen stood near, an eerily silent group.

It leaped up in relief. “What have you done to these men, Galen? Are they alive?”

Without answering, Galen faced the Watchmen.

“Go back to your tower. Remember nothing of what you’ve seen. Forget me, forget these others, forget the name of the Crow. Remember only that in your hearts you fear the Makers.”

They simply turned and walked away, the castellan among them; for a long while the echo of their footsteps rang in the empty alleys.

When they were gone Galen closed down the stone, and then he and Raffi threw every hiding-spell they knew around it, binding it tight, darkening it, until even Carys realized that when she looked at the stone she could no longer quite see it, as if some blind spot hovered behind her eyes.

Finally Raffi looked around. The ruins of Tasceron were dark with smoke. Streets away, an owl hooted. “I almost thought all this would be changed.”

“Not yet.” Galen dragged his hair back irritably. “But when they come, we can rebuild this. We can rebuild everything.”

The Sekoi stroked its fur. “You seem very sure of that, keeper.”

Galen stood a moment, as if looking deep inside himself. Then he said, “I am.”

They walked slowly over the broken stones to a splintered archway. The alley beyond was silent and black.

Carys turned suddenly. “I’ll go on from here alone.”

“Change your mind!” Raffi urged abruptly.

She grinned at him. “Look out for me. If the Makers do come, put in a good word.” Taking the small pack off her back, she tugged something out and pushed it into his hands. “You’d better have this. You can keep it to remember me.”

And she was gone, a flicker in the shadows of the alley, and they could hear her feet running after the tread of the Watchmen.

Raffi looked down; it was a small blue book full of scrawled writing. “Good-bye, Carys,” he murmured, and then sent one long sense-line curling after her.

“I can’t help thinking,” the Sekoi said drily, “that she’s gone back there knowing everything she set out to know. I hope you’re sure of what you’re doing, Relic Master.”

Raffi was silent. It was Galen who answered. “Faith is a strange tree. Plant the seed and somewhere, sometime, in the right weather, it will grow. We also have done what we came for.” He turned to the creature. “We go back to the Pyramid. Then we need to get out of Tasceron. Can you help?”

The Sekoi’s sharp face smiled. “I’m sure it can be arranged.”

“Good.”

“And then what? Do you drag me kicking and squealing back to Alberic?”

Raffi looked up. “Alberic! He’s still got our blue box!”

Galen and the Sekoi gazed at each other with a strange glint in their eyes. Carelessly the Sekoi kicked a loose stone. “I suppose we could always steal it back.”

“I suppose we could,” the keeper said grimly. Then he grinned. “I think it’s our duty really, don’t you?”