The Hidden Coronet

10

Let the keeper beware men’s cold voices.

The water and the wood

Speak no empty phrases.

Litany of the Makers

RAFFI STOOD ON THE HILL, the sky above him a clear, warm blue. He could see the small red moon, Pyra, the youngest of the sisters and his favorite, very pale in the sunlight. Looking up at her, quite suddenly he remembered one time when he had been small, sitting on his mother’s lap, hearing the story of Pyra and the wolf, while his brothers and sisters ran and argued around him. When could that have been? His mother had always been too busy to pay much attention to him. How were they all? he wondered. It had been a long time since he had thought about home, though it had always been there, a place to go back to in the corner of his mind. He knew it had been dirty, noisy, full of arguments; he’d always been in the way, under people’s feet, a dreamer. He probably wouldn’t like it if he went back, he thought sadly, looking out. In a way, Sarres was home now.

All the green island lay beneath him, its orchards barely breaking into blossom, its lanes and hedges, where already the white snowcaps and muskwort were out, and banks of yellow crocus sprouted from the rich soil. In Sarres spring came early, the ground ripe with Maker-power, and all over it, in the hush when the breeze dropped, you could hear the endless, invisible trickle of Artelan’s Well, the spring of water that ran clear as crystal, that Flain had promised would never dry up.

Raffi let his mind slide deep in the energy lines of the island, sending small sense-filaments into branch and root, into worms and birds and water, feeling the green, fresh restlessness, the small pains of awakening.

A sound brought him out abruptly; the soft whirr and thwack of a crossbow bolt. He opened his eyes, sense-lines swirling, then ran, slipping in haste down the steep, wet grass. Halfway down the sound came again, closer, but in complete silence. No one called or yelled.

He slowed, sweating, letting the panic go. Stupid. There were no Watch on Sarres.

Or rather, just the one.

Ducking under the trees he came through the small iron gate onto the lawns and saw Carys. She had set up a circle of wood on a rickety open ladder and was aiming at it, standing well back. As he watched, her finger tightened on the trigger; from here he could see her one eye close, feel the strain of concentration swell inside her like a bright bubble. Then it burst, instantly, and the bolt thumped into the wood.

Carys bent and picked another out of the grass. She looked over.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She slotted the bolt in. “Stupid question. You can see.”

“Yes, but I mean why?”

“To keep my hand in.” She tucked the smooth hair behind one ear. “And to be ready for when we go.”

“We’re not going till after the Feast,” he said, his heart cold. “And Carys, you can’t come!”

She grinned at him. “Oh can’t I?”

“Your picture was on that death-list!”

To his surprise she just laughed. “Of course it was! Don’t worry, Raffi. I can cut my hair and change its color. They taught us all about that.”

“You can’t change your face.”

“You’d be surprised how bad people’s memories are. I’ll take my chance.” She wound the bolt back rapidly.

He wandered over, knowing it was useless to argue. “You’d be safe here.”

“I’m coming. If Galen’s going after this Coronet, then so am I.” She aimed deliberately. Watching, he felt the weight of the bow in his mind; then he opened his third eye and from the target saw the bolt explode into his chest with a wooden thump.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why weren’t we on that list? Galen and me?”

“They don’t have drawings of you.”

“Braylwin would have described us. They could have made some sort of picture.”

She looked at him, thinking. “There are lots of lists. Still, you’re right. It’s odd.”

A mere-duck flew over, its red tail flashing. She whipped up the bow, following it down among the trees.

“Don’t,” he muttered, nervous.

Carys looked at him irritably. “It’s not loaded.”

“I’m very glad of that!” Marco was walking through the trees. In the last few days his wounds had almost healed; looking at him now Raffi saw a stocky, broad-shouldered man in the too-tight red jerkin Tallis had found for him. Red of face too, a bold, blunt, cheery face. He sat himself down next to them.

“Now, I’d love to know why a scholar of the Order needs to practice with a crossbow. Maybe if I wasn’t a hated relic-dealer, and in Galen’s opinion lower than the muck on his boot, I’d ask.”

Raffi frowned. Carys laughed. Lowering the bow she kneeled on the grass. “I’m not a scholar. I’m ex-Watch. A bit like you, I suppose.”

“Ex-Watch!” Marco looked curious. “I didn’t think they allowed any ‘ex.’”

She shrugged.

After a silence he said, “My friend Solon tells me we’ll only be here three more days. Until after the Feast of the Field of Gold. Whatever that is.”

Raffi looked appalled. “You don’t know?”

Marco lay back on one elbow, ankles crossed. “Should I?” he teased.

“It’s Flain’s return. From the Underworld. From the dead.”

“Oh.” Marco winked at Carys. “I see. From the dead!”

Raffi felt himself going red. The man was making fun of him. And the Makers. It made him angry. “It’s important,” he muttered fiercely. “It’s the first day of spring.”

“I’m sure it is. Where would we be without the Makers.”

Raffi scrambled up.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” Marco sat upright, his grin suddenly gone. “Really, Raffi. I shouldn’t poke fun at you. Not after you all but took my head out of the noose. It’s just . . .” He shook his head in irritation. “How an intelligent man like Solon can believe all that nonsense . . .”

“Is it though?” Carys said thoughtfully. “How would you explain the world, Marco? Relics—you must have handled a lot of those. And Sarres?”

He pulled a mock painful face and rubbed an eyebrow; he had thick eyebrows, as if his hair had been dark, and across his knuckles the word ROSE tattooed in blue. “I’m a plain man, Carys. How should I know. There were Makers—there probably were—but I think they were people just like us. Well, cleverer. Where they came from, I don’t know, but I don’t believe they came down from the stars on stairs of silver! They knew things we don’t; the relics were things they made. Over the centuries the Order built up these fancy stories about them and forgot all the important bits. And why not? It gave them plenty of power. Men like Solon would have been respected. Before the Watch.”

She glanced over at Raffi. He looked hot and confused.

“And the power the keepers have? It exists. I’ve seen it.”

“So have I!” Marco laughed. “Oh, I can’t explain that. The ice-cracking was incredible, but when Galen got those trees to close in around us—that would have made my hair stand on end if I still had any!”

They laughed with him, Raffi uncomfortably.

“It comes from the Makers, I suppose. It still doesn’t make them gods.”

“They weren’t gods,” Raffi muttered. “They were the sons of God.”

Marco lay back in the grass, hands behind his head.

“Whatever,” he said lazily.

IT SCARED RAFFI. He couldn’t talk to Galen about it because for two days the keeper had been deep in the rituals of preparation—fasting, meditating alone, on the hill and by the spring. And anyway, Raffi knew Galen too well. He’d have laughed harshly, and given him some chapters of the Book to study. Or told him off for listening to unbelievers.

Sitting in the dark, silent room that night, with the fire and all the candles out, in the cold stillness before the day of the Return, Raffi found himself wondering about the Makers. Flain and Tamar, Soren, Halen, Theriss, Kest. All his life he had known of them, had spoken to them. Often he felt they were close to him, answering when he needed them. Sometimes there was just silence. He knew all the stories, had even stood in the House of Trees itself. And there he had heard a voice, a living voice, full of distance. A voice from beyond the stars.

Marco couldn’t explain that away, could he?

Raffi shifted. He was stiff and cold and almost lightheaded with hunger after fasting all day. Next to him Solon turned for a moment and smiled. It made Raffi feel better. He and Galen, Solon and Tallis sat silent. Even sense-lines were forbidden now, in the darkest time before dawn. All night since sundown they had waited, without food, without light, without speech. As Flain had done. Because this was what it must be to be dead.

With a creak, the door opened.

Carys put her head around and slipped in. After her came the Sekoi, a tall, thin shadow, carrying Felnia, looking tousled and half asleep, still clutching her worn toy, Cub.

At the back, Marco followed. The bald man closed the door silently and leaned against it, folding his arms. Seeing Raffi’s stare, he grinned.

Tallis stood up, stiff. Tonight she was an old woman, and wore a dark crimson dress.

“Keepers,” she said. “The night ends. The time has come.”

All the doors and windows were opened. Outside, the darkness was absolutely still, the sky mottled with high, pale clouds, moon-edged. Agramon and Cyrax were full, and Lar’s pitted face a ghostly shadow.

It was Solon who led them out, stiff with sitting, over the gray lawns in the night-chill and up the hill, climbing the long slope silently to the top, and as they stood there in a breathless line the wind gusted, lifted Carys’s hair and Galen’s coat. Felnia had gone back to sleep; the Sekoi propped her against its thin shoulder.

They waited, seeing all the darkness of Sarres below them, until Solon began the Canticle of Flain, his voice strange, as if someone else spoke through him.

I, who had been in the dark, am come into the light.

From the bitter places of the Underworld I bring all I have learned.

For without pain how can there be joy?

And without darkness how can there be light?

Without hatred how can there be love?

How can there be life without the selflessness of death?

He raised his hands. A few birds had begun to sing in the woods; the sky in the east was pale, the underside of the clouds lit with a red glow.

There is no darkness black enough to swallow me.

There is no chasm deep enough to bury me.

There is no fear cold enough to empty me.

My heart is full; my heart holds all the world.

The sky brightened. All the woods and fields were alive with birdsong. On the tip of the horizon far in front of them, among the mists and fog of the marshes, a slit of scarlet slashed the gray. Herons flew over, three in a row. All the keepers were chanting now, and Raffi with them, hands out.

Behold, Anara, I have returned to you from the Pit,

Bringing daylight,

Bringing the spring.

I have been dead. I have been alive.

In all the hollows of your heart there is nowhere that I have not been.

And at last the sun burned before them, vivid as fire, catching Galen’s face and Carys’s, and the Sekoi’s grin and Felnia’s yawn and Solon’s outstretched hands. It shone in Tallis’s flame-red hair and she laughed; it stung Raffi’s eyes to wetness and Marco’s broad face to a tolerant smile.

All around them, Sarres was a Field of Gold.