The Hidden Coronet

27

Each man on this world has seven shadows.

Poems of Anjar Kar

THEY BOTH STARED AT HER.

“Think about it!” Ignoring the knife, Carys turned on Raffi. “Marco was on the next street! I was miles away. So was the Sekoi. The only ones in the cellar with you were Solon and Galen! It has to be one of them!”

“Not Galen!” Raffi snapped.

“And not Solon!” Marco lowered the knife. He looked stunned and winded, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. “They tortured him. I saw them drag him back into the cell. I saw him bleed. They were going to hang us.”

“No, they weren’t!” Carys shook her head, impatient. “It was a setup, all of it. Solon was the bait—they wanted him to be rescued. Work it out!” She looked at his face and her voice softened. “Marco, the Margrave must have heard the rumors about the Crow—they’d be in every intelligence return. So they set up bait—a keeper, someone whose mind is so broken they can control him. Maybe more than one, in different places. Public places, where everyone can see. And when Galen rescued Solon, the Margrave let it happen. We took the Margrave with us, to all our places. To Sarres. To the Great Hoard.” She shook her head desperately. “We were so stupid! It’s the oldest trick in the book. And because Solon was such a harmless, kindly old man . . .”

“No!” Marco twisted away.

She grabbed his sleeve. “Believe it. It’s true. I know how they work.”

“Not Solon.” His voice was an agony. Raffi looked away, feeling sick and miserable, but Carys was relentless. “Solon! And we’ve led him straight to the Coronet.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He’s down there, isn’t he? And if he puts it on . . .” She whirled on Raffi, her face white in the falling snow. “My God, Raffi! If he puts it on, the Margrave will control the weather-net, the moons, who knows what! We may have given him the greatest weapon in the world.”

IT WAS A CIRCLE OF DULL GOLD, frail and perfect. On the inside were minute letters, strange and unreadable. Galen reached out and brushed the scattered snow off the glass. “So this is your ransom,” he whispered.

The Sekoi was staring at the dead face of the Maker. “Indeed. I had always known he was here, but how strange it is to see him. The one who caused all our anguish. Who ruined a world, and then repented.”

“How did he come here?”

The Sekoi shrugged. “I’m not of the Council. They might know. Alone of the Makers only Kest truly died. When the others had gone my people must have brought his body here. But I know nothing of how, or from where.”

Solon had not moved. When he uncovered his face they caught the wet glint of tears. Galen bent over him. “Come,” he said gruffly. “We need to hurry.”

But the Archkeeper seemed struck to the heart. His astonishment was deeply personal, a grief that Galen felt rising from somewhere endlessly deep inside him, a great pit, a terrible darkness.

“After all this time,” he muttered. “To see him again.”

He bowed his head, then staggered up unsteadily and looked around. For a second he seemed hardly to know where he was.

“All right?” Galen asked.

“Yes, my son.” The Archkeeper wiped his face with his sleeve. “The shock.”

“We need to open the glass.” Galen put both hands on it and pushed, then sent a line of energy rippling around its edges feverishly.

“How does it work?”

The Sekoi bit its nails. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll break it if I have to,” Galen growled. But to his astonishment he felt the glass melt. Suddenly there was no lid. Tiny flakes of snow fluttered onto Kest’s hair.

“Take it,” Solon whispered. “Hurry!”

They were each filled with the same thought, that Kest would open his eyes, snatch Galen’s hand. With an effort Galen reached down and touched the Maker’s hands.

They were cold, and as he lifted the Coronet from them carefully he thought that these were the hands that had made evil, that had brought it into the world.

He shook the thought away and looked at the relic.

It was icy. Its very touch went through his mind like a silent chord of music, and it was light in his hands, as if it had no weight. Moonlight reflected from it. He held it on his palms; the precious, fragile hope of the world.

“What now?” The Sekoi fidgeted.

Galen was still. Then he held the Coronet out. “Archkeeper.”

“My son, surely the Crow . . .”

“This is for you to do. The leader of the Order. Who better than a healer to heal the weather?”

Solon smiled ruefully. He nodded and held out his scarred hands. The moonlight touched the edge of his face and through the soft drift of falling snow his hair gleamed like silver. His fingers closed over Galen’s.

“Don’t let him take it!”

The yell rang across the vast arena. Echoes of it sent loose fragments of stone crashing. The Sekoi jumped; Solon snatched the Coronet and whirled around.

“He’s the spy! It’s him!” Carys leaped down from the slithering gold, breathless and gasping. She aimed the bow hurriedly.

Behind them Marco dropped to the ground. In an instant he had rushed at them; Galen took a quick step back, then a flicker of light cracked from his hands. There was a stench of scorched flesh and Marco yelped, rolling in agony, the knife clattering onto the heap of treasure.

“You fool!” he yelled at Galen. “Don’t you see?”

Galen turned, grim-faced.

Solon had the knife. He slashed the air with it. “Keep back,” he snarled. “All of you!”

The change in him horrified them. It was a total transformation, something deep in the tissues of his skin, so that his eyes were darker and the very muscles of his face had clenched and hardened, all his kindliness dropped like a mask.

“Put the bow down.”

Carys didn’t waver. “If you try and put the relic on,” she said tightly, “I’ll kill you.”

“I believe you.” He smiled, a crooked, unfamiliar smile. “But your hands aren’t your own now. Not if I want them to be mine. They have been mine a long time.”

To her horror she felt her fingers slacken. The bow clattered among the gold, its bolt spilling out.

Solon raised the Coronet in one hand. “Now watch,” he said.

Gold coins slithered; he whipped around in alarm, but Raffi’s energy-line snagged him around the wrist; it crackled and spat and Raffi hurled himself after it, but Marco was faster. Grabbing the frail Coronet with his great fist he struggled chest to chest with the Archkeeper. In a swirl of snow they both held it, the awen-field crackling around them, but even as Galen ran forward Marco waved him back.

“It’s me, Holiness! It’s Marco!”

“Marco?” The Archkeeper’s eyes flickered; for a second doubt came into them.

“You won’t hurt me. Come on, Holiness, let me have the crown. We’ll look after you.”

Solon shook his head, bewildered.

“Oh, my old friend,” he said. “I’m sorry.” His arm pulled back. He stabbed, driving the knife deep in under the ribs, vicious and hard.

Marco’s breath croaked. He collapsed on hands and knees. In the moonlight his dark blood dripped on the snow, but Raffi had jerked the lines tight and suddenly out of the night the terrible wrath of the Crow swooped down on them all, a heaviness like beating wings; Solon was flung aside and lay crumpled on the treasure, the Coronet spilling from his hand, rolling over coins and cups to the Sekoi’s feet, where it clattered and spun and lay still.

For a second none of them could move.

Then the Sekoi grabbed the relic and Galen was on his knees easing Marco over.

The bald man hissed with pain. Blood was everywhere; already it had soaked his jerkin and coat and stained the coins under him. Raffi knew there was nothing they could do.

Galen lifted his head gently. “Marco?”

The man’s eyes opened. He forced a grin. “Sorry now, keeper?”

“What can I . . . ?”

“Save it. No time.” He winced, turning his head to look at Solon in disbelief. “I loved that old man. But how he’s used us. You and me. The girl and the creature. Set us up against each other; maybe even brought me along for it. Suspecting each other. Not him. He was laughing . . . behind our backs.”

“It’s not Solon,” Galen said urgently. “It’s the evil that rules him.”

Marco nodded weakly. “But he let it. Let it in. I wouldn’t have. Nor would you.” His hand tightened on Galen’s, then slid down to the coins, grasping a fistful. “Look at this. More than I’ve ever had in my life.”

For a second he held them tight. Then his grip loosened, the money slithering away.

“What a joke,” he whispered.

Snow settled on his still chest. Far and cold, Raffi felt the spark of his life go out, like a candle.

In utter silence, Galen made the sign of Flain on his forehead, palms, and chest. Raffi whispered some words of the Litany, but after only two lines the Sekoi crouched.

“Galen,” it said anxiously. “They’re here.”

The keeper didn’t move at once. He laid Marco down and his face was as bleak as Raffi had ever seen it, as if he could barely control his devastation. Then he stood and looked up, as Carys was already doing.

All around, high on the ramparts of the arena, the Sekoi tribes were watching. Thousands of them stood up there, their eyes bright as cats’ in the dark, the snow drifting silently onto their fur.

“Use it!” The Sekoi held the Coronet out as if the metal burned its hands. “Quickly!”

Galen was still. He was looking at Solon as the old man’s eyes opened; instantly Carys raised the reloaded bow.

“No,” the keeper whispered.

“Galen?”

Eyes black with loss, Galen turned. “No. You do it.”

The Sekoi blinked. “Me?”

“You and your people.”

“But . . .” The creature stared at Raffi. “I don’t . . .”

“He’s right.” Raffi came and took the Coronet reverently from its seven fingers. “This isn’t something only one of us can do. It’s for all of us. And we can’t reach the Sekoi. You can.”

Reaching up, he put the frail gold circlet on its head.

The creature’s eyes narrowed. For a moment only the snow fell, silent.

Then it said, “Raffi, I can see! I can see all the way to the stars!”