The Hidden Coronet

22

Obedience to seniority of rank will be complete and unquestioning.

Insubordination is not tolerated.

Rule of the Watch

NO ONE SAID ANYTHING.

Strange oily rain cascaded in sheets from the clifftop beyond the overhang. The Sekoi folded its long fingers and waited.

It was Raffi who exploded. “She wouldn’t! She’d never have gone back to them!”

“She’s never left,” the Sekoi said calmly. “The wanted list is an age-old ruse.” It flicked an anxious glance at Galen. “I’m sorry. I know you thought . . .”

“She rescued Galen from the Watch! And Sarres! She loves Sarres! She’d never betray it.” Raffi leaped up. He couldn’t bear this. “And she’s not even here to argue for herself. How could you leave her in some dream? She’ll die!”

“She won’t.” The creature grimaced. “And I left her because I will not risk taking her to the Circling.”

Raffi gave a hiss of disgust. He walked to the edge of the overhang and stared angrily out into the crashing rain.

Still Galen had not spoken. He looked bleak.

Solon said hesitantly, “Of course I did not know her as well as you. She always seemed . . . astute.”

“As sharp as a needle,” Marco muttered. “I always suspected there was no way out of the Watch.” He folded his arms. “Still. At least now you know it wasn’t me.”

Galen ignored him.

“It is Sarres I mourn most.” Solon rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “The Watch riding in there . . .”

“They won’t.” Galen’s voice was harsh, but Raffi was relieved to hear it. Thunder rumbled over the wood below, a long crumpling roar, startlingly loud.

“But . . .”

“They won’t. Sarres is not a place but a state of belief. No one can find it without faith.”

“I did,” Marco observed, sucking a tattooed knuckle.

Galen didn’t bother to answer. He got up and went over to Raffi and stood behind him, looking out into the storm.

“It’s not true,” Raffi whispered. “We’d have known.”

“Not if the Margrave controlled her,” Galen said bleakly. “She may not even have known herself.”

Raffi turned, horrified. “Some sort of mind-link?”

“It must be. We didn’t know. And the Margrave has the power of Kest in him. Who knows what sort of abilities he has. She left no messages, talked to no one. How else could she have done it, Raffi?”

“It wasn’t her.” Stubborn, Raffi turned back to the rain.

He wouldn’t let himself think that it was.

CARYS STARED DOWN AT the grinning face. She knew at once that if she showed the slightest fear she was finished.

“Get on your feet when you address me,” she snarled.

The Watchman didn’t move. His grin flickered, then widened. “The girlie’s got a temper! Why should I?”

“Because soon I’ll have you hanging by your thumbs in Maar for blowing the biggest undercover operation since Tasceron!” She whirled around. “Who’s in charge?”

A gray-haired man took a bite from a marsh-pear. “I am. And—”

“Shut up and listen. I need a horse and I need it now.” She tugged the insignia off her neck and tossed it to him; he had to scramble up to catch it. “Carys Arrin. Five forty-seven Marn Mountain. Priority Bulletin twenty-six/page nine hundred, dated two weeks ago. Remember it?”

Something changed in his face. “I might.”

She walked right up to him, furious. “You should. You’re the patrol that’s been following us. Right?”

He nodded slowly. “But you’re on the list. You’re supposed to be—”

“Flainsteeth, do I have to spell it out?” she hissed. “I’m in Harn’s group posing as a renegade agent. How else do you think the information’s getting out!”

He glanced over her shoulder. She heard the others getting hurriedly up and felt suddenly exhilarated. She was enjoying this, she realized. At last it was something she knew how to handle.

She snatched the insignia back from his hand. “I need to get back to them before they get to the Coronet.” Pushing past him, she helped herself from the Watch rations on the table, shoving food into her pockets.

“Where are they headed?” he asked, too casually. Carys laughed, scornful. “And you think I’m telling you! My orders are to report straight to Maar. No one else.”

“Told you that would be it,” one of the others muttered.

She turned on him. “What?”

“How Maar knew so fast. We couldn’t work it out. Thought it might be the fur-face, doing some kind of mind-talk. Those beasts have all sorts of tricks.” He looked at her curiously. “How do you do it?”

“That’s my secret. What are your orders?”

“Follow Harn’s group, but stay well back,” the sergeant said. “And neutralize this place.” He looked at her, and his scrutiny was hard and uncertain. “So why aren’t you still with them?”

“The Sekoi suspected me. I had to deal with it.” She prayed they hadn’t come across the creature, but the Watchsergeant just nodded.

“At Arreto there were only the keepers. But won’t they . . .”

“Not if I catch up to them.” She turned abruptly and marched straight to the door. “I want the best horse. And get this scum out of the way.”

The black-toothed man spread his hands. “No hard feelings,” he said with a grin.

Carys looked at him narrowly. “What’s your number?” she said, cold.

His face went white. “Six oh four. Sor Lake.”

She nodded. “I’ll remember that.”

At the bottom of the stairs the fog was thicker, but when they brought the horse she climbed on and turned it quickly. “They were well gone when you got here?”

The Watchsergeant nodded. “Tracks go west. Into Sekoi country.”

She nodded. Without a word she urged the horse on and galloped into the fog.

Five minutes later, hands shaking, she had to stop. For a moment weariness washed over her, a shuddering relief that drained her of all energy, so that she crouched low and breathed deep, dragging the sour smog into the back of her throat.

Then she pushed the hair off her face and listened.

Behind her, glass was being smashed.

Pane after pane of it.

RAFFI HAD NEVER BEEN SO DEEP into Sekoi country. He trudged wearily after Galen, watching the keeper’s stick stab the sodden red soil. The weather deteriorated now with astonishing speed; crashing rain drifting into an acid, stinging snow, then into squalls of howling wind with bizarre airborne showers of small, brown toad-like creatures that he had never seen before. A while ago a flash flood had roared down the valley, sweeping broken trees and even boulders along in its torrent. Now the night was dry and icy and there was a faint tang of fog in his throat.

There were no birds, few animals. Everything was hiding. He had never sensed a land so cowed.

They walked, silent; Galen was too morose or too deep in prayer to speak and whenever Marco ventured some comment he ignored it.

“And everything I say just makes things worse,” Solon had muttered mournfully during a pause to drink. He flexed his scarred fingers, pouring water over the dirt on them and rubbing it anxiously. “I am deeply sorry about Carys, Raffi. It must be hard for you. You were good friends.”

Raffi looked sick. “It wasn’t her.”

The Archkeeper was quiet, replacing the cork. Then he said, “When I was chained in the Watch cells, those under torture dared not speak to one another. You never knew who was a real prisoner and who was a spy. It was one of the worst things. You dared not say anything, comfort anyone, ask a question. And outside too it can be like that. Even if they’re not listening, we think they are. That’s what they’ve done to us.”

Behind them, Marco laughed. “You talked to me.”

“And you to me, old friend.” Solon turned, passing the water flask. “In the end we have to trust each other. That’s the only thing that will outwit them.” He put his hand up to the awen-beads that were gone, his fingers searching for them absently. “Dear God, what dark times those were. What horrors we endured . . .”

Marco lowered the flask. “Don’t,” he said sharply. “Stop thinking of it.” He caught Solon’s wrist and pulled it down. “It’s over. All over.”

For a moment they looked at each other. Raffi glimpsed a shared despair, a sudden pitful of shame and terror that he jerked back from, embarrassed and hot.

“It’ll never happen again,” Marco said firmly.

“My son.” Solon put both his hands on the other man’s shoulders. “We both know very well that it might. If they capture us, we will pay for our escape.”

Now, watching Solon climb wearily out of the trees, Raffi wondered where Carys was, in what fog of nightmare. And under it all ran his old terror of the Watch, the clang of the prison door, the agony of tiny worms burrowing into the flesh . . . he shuddered, so that Galen turned.

“Raffi?” he said. “Come and see this.”

Raffi walked up to the brow of the hill, and stared down.