The Hidden Coronet

17

We are channels for the power of the

Makers. Including Kest. Kest is in us all.

Twelfth Prophecy of the Owl

BY NIGHTFALL THINGS HAD SETTLED, though Solon and Emmy and some of the others were still hard at work with the injured, bandaging wounds, setting broken bones. Moans of pain came from all corners; Raffi had to steel himself not to shut them out. There were few medicines, and many people had been dug out with severe injuries. More were still trapped.

The night was cold but clear. All seven moons rose in it, and as he snatched a rest from helping with the digging he gazed wearily up at them, longing for sleep. He tried vaguely to open his third eye and make light patterns, but all his energy was gone, drowned out with the strain of the endless terror of the wind. And then with a sudden vivid shock he saw it, and stared, amazed.

“Get on, Raffi!” Galen yelled. “There may be people still under here!”

“I know. It’s just . . .” He looked from Cyrax to Atterix, then back to Agramon. “The moons are wrong,” he breathed.

Silent, close behind, he felt Galen’s astonishment. They said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Of all the knowledge of the Order, the patterns of the moons were what any scholar studied first. The patterns were eternal, year in, year out, the sisters’ long complex dance through their chain of movements—the Web, the Arch and, most holy of all, the Ring, formed only once a decade on the feast of the Makers’ Descending.

But now they were wrong. Agramon was wrong. She should have been overhead, a thin crescent, but she was too low and, it struck Raffi suddenly, too big.

“Agramon is falling!” he whispered.

Galen pulled him out of sight behind a battered roof. “Say nothing! Try not to keep looking up.” But he stared up again himself, his sharp profile against the frosty sky. “Dear God, Raffi, this is worse than any of us had thought! Agramon is out of alignment. The skies themselves are slipping into chaos.”

“Galen!” It was Marco’s yell, urgent. With a glare of warning Galen grabbed his pick and scrambled over; Raffi followed hastily.

“Someone’s alive down here.” Marco was lying in a hollow of rubble. “Listen!”

A whisper of sound was muffled under the stones.

“We’ll get you out!” Marco called. He glanced up. “How many?”

Galen came down beside him. “Two. But we need to hurry.”

It took an hour to reach her. Each time they called, her voice was weaker. Emmy talked to her nonstop, pushing her arm deep among the stones till she could feel the cold fingers grasping hers. A heavy beam from a collapsed ceiling had held off most of the crashing bricks but the woman kept gasping for them to hurry, because of the baby. Always because of the baby.

“He’s cold,” the choked whisper came up. “So cold!”

Galen looked anxiously at Solon. “I can barely sense it now,” he muttered.

In the freezing night everything went chill. Then Marco began to dig faster, recklessly. “Get more torches,” he yelled, flinging a stone up to Raffi. “And blankets.”

The cold clouded their breath. Ice was forming on the rubble, beautiful and deadly. In the flaring light of the torches Marco’s eyes were red and sore in his filthy face. “I can see her!” he hissed.

As the rubble came away, so could Raffi. A woman lying under the beams, in a tangle of smashed wood.

“Take him!” she gasped, pushing something white up into Marco’s arms. “Please!”

Marco turned to Raffi. “Get him to the fire,” he said, his voice oddly strained.

Because the baby was dying. As soon as the tiny head fell against his chest Raffi knew it, and looked up, stricken. “Galen!”

Flame light flickered around him. “Lay him here,” one of the women whispered.

It was a boy. They wrapped him hurriedly in warmed cloth but he was blue in the face and barely breathing, his tiny eyes closed and filthy with dust.

Emmy bathed his face carefully. “What can we do?” she muttered.

Marco and Galen were dragging the woman out. The stones slithered dangerously but she tore herself out of their grip screaming, “Darry! Is he alive?”

The baby gave a faint croak as Emmy bent over him, massaging his chest with her fingers. “He’s going,” she whispered.

“No!” The woman grabbed the child. “He can’t die!” she screamed, her face a mask of agony. “For Flain’s sake, help him! Can’t anybody do anything?”

No one answered.

And then Solon pushed forward. He came up close to her, his hair silver in the moonlight, and he held out his hands.

“Give me the child.”

His voice was so calm that after a second she obeyed. Solon took the tiny form and laid him down in the nest of blankets. “Get them all to move back,” he said, glancing up at Marco. “Right back.”

As the bald man pushed the crowd away the mother crouched. “What are you going to do?”

Solon looked at her kindly. “Nothing, daughter. Whatever is done here, the Makers do it.”

She closed her eyes with sudden weakness.

“I may need you, Galen,” Solon murmured.

He closed his eyes.

For a long second there was only stillness and the crackle of the flames. And cold. A cold that struck deep into them, the icy chill of death, unmistakable, hardening over their hearts as it frosted the ruined town.

Until Solon spoke.

“Flain,” he said, his voice raw. “Tamar, Soren, Theriss of the Sea. Kest of the Sorrows. Hear me. Put the breath back in your child. Put the light back in his soul.”

The baby had stopped breathing. Even Raffi knew that. The crowd shifted, restless. “What’s he doing?” someone called.

Solon touched the child; forehead, chest, and palms, breathed on him and handed him back to his mother.

“Praise be to God and the Makers,” he said quietly.

And the baby screamed. His voice rang out, a fretful hungry wail loud over the frosty ruins, scattering rats and skeats, sending flittermice screeching off like shadows.

The crowd surged forward. The woman, sobbing with joy and astonishment stared at the child, clutched him tight, kissing his head over and over, but Solon just turned and walked toward the cellar.

People fell back, making a way for him. The night was full of some terrified delight that Raffi could almost taste. Galen strode after him and Raffi followed, his sense-lines suddenly charged with energy as if it had risen through the earth.

In the cellar, Solon sat unsteadily by the fire.

Galen crouched before him. “Are you all right?”

“A little tired, my son. Nothing more.”

“I’m not surprised!” Galen shook his head. “Tallis was right. You have a rare gift.”

Solon shrugged and smiled up at Raffi, who said, “It was a miracle!”

“No, lad. The Makers put their strength back into him. I was only the channel.”

“The faith was yours,” Galen said. “But tell me, when you invoked the Makers, why include Kest? For healing?”

Solon stared at him. For a moment he seemed almost shocked, his breath clouding in the frosty air, and something like a vacancy passed over his face. He looked lost and bewildered. “Did I?” he whispered.

Then he grabbed Galen’s hand. “Listen, I have to warn you . . .”

The words choked, dried up.

Worried, Galen held his arms. “What is it?”

All the sense-lines rippled. For a second something black and terrible stood among the three of them, a flicker of evil that came and went like the leap of a flame. Solon looked around hopelessly.

“It’s gone. I thought ... But I might have been wrong. I’m so tired, Galen, that’s all.”

“We all are.” Weary, Galen sat down by him, stirring the fire up. It was very dark in the cellar now; most of the injured slept.

Abruptly Galen said, “I have something to tell you myself. Solon, you asked me once how I broke the ice at the Frost Fair.” He dragged both hands through his long hair. “It’s difficult to explain. The boy and I were in Tasceron.”

Solon was watching, with suppressed excitement. Raffi knew he had been waiting for this a long time. “You can trust me, my son,” he said gently.

“We found the House of Trees. It still exists, Archkeeper, deep below the ruined streets. And in the House we found . . . the Crow.”

Solon looked astonished. “Alive?”

Galen was silent a moment. Then he said, “The Crow is a relic. A device to speak through. For a few seconds we spoke with the Makers, Solon. So far away, they sounded. And so close. And then . . .” He shook his head, Solon caught his arm.

“Tell me, Galen,” he said fervently. “I feel a terrible struggle inside you. Tell me what it is.”

Galen looked up, sudden and bleak.

“I am the Crow now, Solon. The power of the relic burned into me. It lives deep in me like a spirit; sometimes it surges out like a wave of energy.” He smiled grimly. “That was how . . .”

Then he stopped.

A brick had slid from the rubble; someone stood there. The flames crackled in the wind and leaped up. Solon sighed bitterly.

“Marco.”

The bald man came out of the shadows and crouched to get warm. He stared at them both curiously. “I didn’t mean to listen. I don’t suppose you believe that.”

Galen stared back in cold fury. “You heard?”

“Everything.” Marco shook his head. “I never thought I’d have this sort of luck and not be able to use it. What would the Watch pay for the Crow!”

Galen’s eyes went cold, but Solon smiled. “Don’t tease us, old friend.”

“Oh, I won’t.” The bald man spread his hands and grinned at him. “Both of you are too much for a plain man like me. You’ll have to trust me, Galen.”

But Emmy had come clambering in, with Andred behind her. Her face was white. “Hurry!” she gasped. “You must go, all of you!”

“The Watch are here,” the stout man muttered. “A column of forty riding hard toward the town. You can see them from the walls.”

Wearily, Solon stood up. “But there’s still so much to do here.”

“For us, not you,” the man said, his voice harsh. He glanced at Galen. “I’ll think differently about the Order after this.”

As they turned away Emmy caught Galen’s sleeve. “Listen,” she whispered. “They know about you—the Watch. They knew you were keepers, but they warned me not to alarm you.”

Galen stared at her. “How! How did they know?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you.”

In five minutes they had grabbed the packs and a handful of food, and were at the walls, where the vortex had smashed an enormous breach.

Raffi looked back at the ruined town. “What will they do?” he murmured to Galen.

“The Watch will clear the place. Make its people refugees and beggars,” the keeper said harshly, watching Solon press the last coins into Emmy’s hand. “It’s no good to them after this.”

“But there are people still buried . . .”

Galen turned on him in wrath. “Yes, there are! And don’t you know the Watch by now, boy! They’ll leave them to die.” He rubbed his face with the back of one hand in exhaustion. “As we’re leaving them, God forgive us.”