The Hidden Coronet

16

Lands will shake, the stars fall.

The moons will plummet.

Water and fire will engage in battle.

Apocalypse of Tamar

THE VORTEX MUST HAVE STRUCK the town full on. Deep in the dim cellar, huddled among casks and barrels, Raffi suffered its fury, the terrible wind shrieking like nothing he had ever imagined, the pain of it cutting through his mind like a knife, no matter how close he hugged his arms around his head.

They were well below ground, and yet even here the crashing of walls and buildings came to them as the storm smashed whole houses and streets. Dust showered down, but the roaring terror had long drowned all talk. Some children whimpered. A girl slept, exhausted. In the dull light of two snatched oil lamps, Raffi glimpsed all their shadowy faces; dirty, tired people huddled in corners, who had managed to scramble down here when the inn roof had finally been torn clean away.

The stout man lay against one wall, holding a bloody rag to his head. They seemed to have been here forever. The noise was unbelievable; Raffi was sure nothing would be left standing. Closing his eyes he remembered briefly the smothering moths, the broken dome. That would have all gone. Galen’s fierce urge to destroy it had been fulfilled.

Turning his head, Raffi glanced over at the keeper. For him the pain must be a worse agony, screaming along the raw sense-lines, but Galen sat still, his back against the damp bricks, his gaze steady and absorbed. As usual in times of crisis he could go deep into meditation, his soul far off. For a moment Raffi let himself wonder if Galen’s rage had caused the vortex. Then he shook his head. That was stupid.

Solon sat next to him, his head pillowed on a sack. The Archkeeper looked gray and wan. He managed a smile. “Can’t last much longer,” he whispered.

An enormous crash shook the walls. A woman gasped.

“Flain help us,” someone breathed.

Suddenly bricks and stone came thumping down, a slither and thunder that made Raffi flatten himself in terror, and sent a vast cloud of choking black mortar through the cellar. For a moment he was sure the ceiling was coming in. A lamp toppled and smashed, spilling oil. Solon covered his filthy hair with his arm. “Tamar guard us,” he kept muttering. “Soren protect us.”

Slowly, the rubble slid to a stop.

The new, tilted darkness tasted of grit; Raffi spat it out, his whole body tense. This was terror; he breathed it in with the dust. It stifled his thoughts like the moths; that terror of the roof coming down, the crushing weight of the rubble above.

He curled tight, trying to think of anything else. Where was Marco? Dead, almost certainly. He imagined him, bleeding under some smashed wall. And Carys, and the Sekoi? Had the storm struck them?

He wouldn’t think about that.

And then he realized he was listening to silence.

Utter silence.

Heads raised. Solon’s prayers faded. Someone said, “It’s stopped.”

The silence was a great peace, a lifted weight. They could even hear the faintest plip of water dripping.

“Thank God,” Solon whispered.

Raffi went to stand, but Galen’s hand reached out and caught him like a vise. “It hasn’t finished,” he said, and his voice was harsh, filling the stifling space. “The center of the storm is passing over. We’re only halfway through.”

The ale-wife, Emmy, came crawling through the rubble. She was filthy, her long hair dragged out of its pins. She looked appalled. “Are you sure?”

“Certain.” Galen looked at her. “Keep the children close to the walls.”

They waited. The stout man mopped his wound. “If not the Order’s work, keeper,” he said stubbornly, “then whose? The Makers?”

Galen eyed him. “The decay of it.”

“So what can save us?”

“Faith.”

“In the Makers? They’re long gone.”

“Are they?” Galen glanced at him sidelong. “But you were right about some things. The Order are not finished. The Order will save you, despite yourselves. So will the Crow.”

As he said the word, the storm crashed back, an explosion of noise. Raffi groaned, covering his head. He lay there and endured it, knowing it was worse, louder, unbearable because a woman’s crying was mixed up in it and from some dark despair he raised his head and saw Galen had an arm around Emmy and she was sobbing endlessly, her sons clinging to her. Time ended; only the storm’s scream lived. Once Raffi thought the battering rage had lessened and he almost slept, in sheer exhaustion, and another time he wandered into delirium and knew, instantly and surely, that the Margrave was behind him, a grinning dark horror at his shoulder, as he screeched out and jerked around. But there was only Solon, looking old and somehow shriveled, rubbing at a tiny mark on his hands, over and over.

Raffi reached out and held his fingers gently.

The Archkeeper looked up abruptly. “The cells were like this,” he breathed, his voice choked.

An icy chill touched Raffi’s mind. For a moment he saw a pit of horror; clutching the old man’s fingers, he said, “This is not the cells. You’re with us now.”

Solon closed his eyes. When he opened them something had passed. He patted Raffi’s arm and managed a smile, weary and kind.

And then, infinitely later, hours later, Raffi must really have slept, because when he opened his eyes and hissed with the ache of his stiff arms, the vortex had passed, and gray daylight filled all the chinks and cracks of the cellar.

PEOPLE WERE MOVING. Galen gently eased Emmy aside and scrambled up, dust streaming from his clothes and hair. Another man joined him.

“The stairs are blocked.”

Galen nodded.

In the corner lay a great mass of rubble. The upstairs must have totally collapsed, Raffi thought in despair, but Galen had already clambered up and was tugging carefully at it. After a while he said, “I think we can get through, but it will take time.”

He pried a stone out and handed it down.

They made a chain of workers, even the stout man joining in desperately as the glimmer of daylight above Galen’s head widened, and Emmy tapped one of the casks into an old beaker, handing it around so everyone could drink. It was thirsty work, and dangerous. Twice stones fell in on them. By the time Galen could squeeze out of the gap Raffi’s face was smudged black and his hands were sore and cut.

The keeper climbed up and disappeared. They heard the slither of rubble. When he looked back in his face was grim.

They lifted the children out first, then the others. When it was Raffi’s turn to crawl up into the chill gray morning he shivered, staring around in disbelief. The town was gone. In its place lay a landscape of ruins, walls barely shoulder high, stairs that led nowhere.

People were picking over the desolation aimlessly. In places plumes of smoke rose up. Alleys and streets were lost under mounds of stone and plaster.

Solon stumbled out. He was deeply moved; there were smudges in the dirt under his eyes. “Dear God,” he said. And then, “My poor Marco.”

But there was no time to stare. Galen gathered everyone around.

“We clear the stairs,” he said. “And use the cellar for the wounded. There’ll be plenty. We also need water.”

“The well.” Emmy looked about hopelessly. “It was in the courtyard. Somewhere over there.”

“Then we find it.”

All morning they worked, at first with their bare hands. People from nowhere came to join them, some carrying injured friends, others desperately searching for wives or children. How many had died or were still trapped Raffi dared not think. Pausing once with a basket full of rubble he gasped to Solon, “The Watchtower will have gone.”

“Assuredly. But anyone left will send for help.”

By late evening the cellar was open. Fires had been lit and the well cleared, but food was scarce. Galen sent out foraging parties—it was strange how even the stout man, Andred, took his orders now without a quibble. Raffi went with them, finding what had once been a bakery and managing to scrape up some spilled flour and stale loaves.

Coming back into the warm gloom of the cellar he squeezed past the rows of injured and saw a thickset man bending over the pile of packs in the corner.

“Marco?” he gasped, astonished.

The bald man turned instantly. He had the relic bag in one hand and the seeing-tube in the other. Raffi’s grin of delight froze; he dumped the food and raced over.

“Raffi!” Marco said brightly.

Raffi snatched the bag. “What are you doing?”

Marco shrugged. After a moment he held out the relictube. “Perhaps I should say . . . ”

“You were stealing them!”

“Raffi, look. I didn’t know if any of you were alive.”

“You could have asked!” Furious, Raffi crammed the relic back in the bag. “When Galen finds out . . .”

“Ah.” Marco looked apprehensive. He glanced around at an old man being helped in by two girls. “Galen’s busy. He’s got a disaster on his hands. I don’t think we need to bother him with my little mistake.” He sucked a grazed knuckle, looking over it at Raffi. “Come on, lad. I won’t go near the things again. No harm done.”

Red-faced, Raffi glared at him. Before he could answer, Solon’s voice, full of joy, rang over the rubble.

“Marco! My dear son! This is a miracle! An absolute miracle!” He scrambled down, slipped and grabbed Marco to steady himself; the bald man hugged him with equal delight. “I thought the wind had blown you away too, Holiness.”

Over the Archkeeper’s shoulder he winked at Raffi, who scowled and dumped the bag back in the corner. He knew he was defeated. If he told Galen, it would only make things worse. They had to keep Marco with them. He knew about Sarres.

Raffi turned, and saw Galen had come down the steps. The keeper was watching them. His gaze was bleak.