The Lost Heiress

6

I watched him, day by day.

Suspicious, I followed his eyes, the movements of his hands.

I knew my brother plotted.

What his plan was I could never see.

Apocalypse of Tamar

CROUCHING UNDER THE TANGLE OF IVY, Raffi watched the smoky room in despair. How could he warn the Sekoi?

The creature was enjoying itself. Its seven long fingers rippled the cards expertly, flicking them out into rapid fans and shuffles. It was laughing, its yellow eyes bright as the gold stacked in front of it, the fur on its sharp face tense with excitement.

Carefully Raffi rustled the ivy. No one even looked. He glanced at Godric; the man had his great scarf open, showing his black stiff beard and the glint of the rusty breastplate. He had found somewhere to sit—the end of a bench full of bargaining market-men—and he leaned there, a threatening shadow, his eyes always on the Sekoi’s back.

It was hopeless.

Raffi turned away and stared out into the rain. What would Galen do?

Pray.

The answer came at once as if someone had said it, and he nodded, sending his mind out in the long call to the Makers: to Flain the Tall, Soren, Lady of Leaves, Tamar, Beast-bringer, Theriss, Halen. Surely one of them could send him some idea.

He turned back, rain dripping on him from the tattered thatch. The Sekoi’s fingers whisked in a few more coins. The other players looked disgusted. The shadow that was Godric drank in silence.

He would have to try some sort of Rapport. It was probably too hard for him. And it meant going inside.

Desperate now, he went around to the door and cautiously edged down three steps into the noise. The stench and smoke made him cough: a smell of beer and bodies and sizzling food. Before he even began, he knew he couldn’t do it. There were too many people shoving him, too much shouting and laughing. Someone grabbed his arm; he turned in fear and saw a woman, her face painted green and blue, holding him with sharp nails.

“Lost, darling?” she simpered, her voice slurred. “You’re not Tomas, are you? Tomas looks like you.”

He tugged away and ran, pushing through the crowd, fighting his way between bodies up the steps and out into the cool rain.

Soaked and shivering, he kicked the wall furiously. Galen needed him! He had to do something.

All at once the idea burst in his mind.

Soren must have sent it; she had made the trees, put seeds in the earth, sap in the veins. He breathed his thanks to her in relief.

Then he went back to the ivy.

He had to work a long time to wake it. It was sluggish, sleepy; it twisted away from him. It had forgotten the keepers, had been asleep too long, was too tired now . . . Patiently Raffi squatted by the gnarled stem, fingers in the cracks, telling it over and over what he wanted it to do, explaining every detail as if to a tiny child. It was young, he knew, and the power of the Makers was weak in it; it had no memory like the old yewman that had once talked to him. But something was there. He argued with it, coaxed it, ordered it, went on repeating the task.

The leaves sighed, as if a breeze moved them. It moaned and complained and then, reluctantly, a tendril began to creep in through the broken window.

Breathless, willing it on, Raffi gripped the sill and watched it, the thin bine with its tiny glossy leaves slithering jerkily down the wall, along the floor, between benches, boots, table legs, behind settles, dragging through the filthy straw. It stopped once, and the drowsiness of forgetting came to him, a great wariness and confusion, but he insisted and it moved again, rustling, tapping, ten years’ growth in ten minutes, a mighty outpouring of its green effort.

Now it was under the Sekoi’s chair, blocked by people passing from its right. Raffi moved impatiently.

A corkscrew of leaves was climbing up the chair leg.

A roar of laughter burst out somewhere in the room. Raffi held his breath. The ivy curled, slithering up, out into the air, feeling its way. Delicately it wrapped a frail bracelet around the Sekoi’s wrist.

For an instant, the creature went rigid. Then it picked up a card, put another down, and dropped its hand below the table. It glanced around swiftly, then to the left, then across the room till its eyes came to the window and met Raffi’s. He made a quick slash with his finger across his throat and jabbed it toward the Sekoi’s back.

With a wry smile the creature looked down.

Raffi ducked under the sill, cold with relief. The creature’s sharp, striped face had made not a flicker of surprise—no wonder it won at cards, he thought happily. But the fur on its neck seemed thicker, even from here. He prayed Godric hadn’t seen him.

Already the ivy was falling back into sleep. He thanked it gravely and peeped in at the window again. The Sekoi said something to the player on its left, put down its cards, and spread them with a wicked grin. The groan of the others was loud enough to hear outside. As it gathered the money, it stood and flashed one look into a mirror on the wall, instant and sharp. But that was enough. It would have seen Godric.

Raffi crept away. He was soaked to the skin and tired; the ivy had been harder to wake than he’d thought. And it wasn’t over. When the Sekoi came out, Alberic’s man would follow. He needed to think of something else now. The man was armed, after all.

Wearily he crouched by the door and tried to plan, seeing all at once how late it was, how the sun had nearly gone. Moths danced in the smoky entrance; above the dim roofs flittermice squeaked and flapped. Galen would be getting worried.

After a few minutes he realized, stupidly, that no one had come out—and that all the noise in the room had stopped. Only the bang and clatter of the closing market came to him.

Suddenly afraid, he went to the steps and peered in. The room was dim. Fires crackled. Pipe smoke hung in thick blue layers. The Sekoi was sitting on the card table, its long knees bent up over a chair. It was telling a story.

Everyone in the room was silent, listening intently. Only the jugs of ale moved, up and down as the men drank, absorbed in watching the creature’s strange, spread hands, its keen yellow gaze. It spoke quietly, but with an odd hypnotic purr in its voice, and as he came down closely enough to hear it, some vague anxiety drifted out of Raffi’s memory like smoke, and all that remained was the story.

It was dark, and he was in a forest that spread endlessly all around him, and he knew his left arm was torn and bleeding. Far down between the trees evil things moved; they were creeping closer, the horrors that Kest had bred, things that slid and slithered and lurched through the wood. His skin prickled; he scratched his face and it was furred. A great sword hung heavy from his seven-fingered hand.

Out of the forest came a screech so savage it made him shiver. He lifted the sword and waited, seeing the starlight gleam on the cold metal, the fur on his neck prickling, and he snarled, his eyes watching the approaching shapes that crackled through the undergrowth. The darkness was thick, poisoned with steams and smoke; he strained to see through it, every crisp leaf breaking, a glimpse of slithering tail, scaled claw.

Then, out of the leaves the thing rose. A wyvern of Kest, huge, its wide wings blotting out the moons, the cold triplet of its eyes high above him, its scaly neck oozing blood and pus from the wounds the Cat-lords had dealt it. They were dead, his own sweet princes, and it still lived, and his anger at that was so raw that he raised the sword with both hands and swung it at the beast, screaming, but it put out a great claw and caught his shoulder and said, “Raffi. Raffi! For Flain’s sake boy, listen to me!”

Gasping, tears running down his face, Raffi stared at the Sekoi.

It grinned smugly. “You’re back.”

Slowly, bewildered, he lowered his empty hands. “What was . . . Who . . . ?”

“You call him Kalimar. Last survivor of the Battle of the Ringrock. You know the story.” It glanced around darkly. “Come on now, before they stir.”

Gripping his sleeve with its long fingers it hurried him away from the inn—he realized suddenly they were outside—and between the houses. The market was gone, the muddy ground trampled with straw and scraps of vegetables.

Raffi shook his head. “The story didn’t finish . . .”

“Didn’t have to. They all knew it. Start them off and leave them to it, small keeper.” It looked pleased with itself; it walked with a strange satisfied swing through the shadows, the fat purse bulging an inside pocket. “Could have been sticky though. So Alberic’s looking for us, is he?”

Raffi nodded. He still felt stunned; waves of anger and grief flooded him and he felt sick. The Sekoi glanced down curiously. “You were far in, small keeper. Too far.”

“I hadn’t meant to listen.”

The Sekoi grinned. “They all say that. Where’s Galen?”

“Galen!” Raffi stumbled. “He’s sick. A Kest-claw bit him on the hand.”

The creature made a spitting noise in its throat. “Ack! Then we should hurry. He’ll need keeping warm. Is he delirious?”

“No. He’s had it before.”

“Maybe, but it’s always serious, Raffi. We should—”

It stopped abruptly. Then it turned its head.

A man was standing in the gloomy lane behind them, dim against the trees. A burly man in a dark coat. He held a loaded crossbow, and it was pointing straight at Raffi.

“I didn’t mean to listen either,” he said gruffly. “I’ve heard your stories before, Master Graycat. It was hard, but my hood was up, and one ear pressed against the settle drowned out most of it.”

The Sekoi hissed a spit of annoyance. It glanced around quickly. The village was silent. No one was about.

“Now what?” Raffi whispered.

“No spells, boy. No keeper-tricks, or this bolt flies. I won’t kill you, but Alberic won’t mind damaged goods.” He leered. “He’s got plans to do a little damage of his own. Now, against that wall.”

The Sekoi backed, and Raffi followed. He still felt dizzy, and glimpses of the story kept flashing back at him—the wyvern, the forest, the sudden weight of the sword—as if this was all part of it, or he was in two places at once.

Then the field wall was hard against his back.

Godric stepped closer. “Where’s the other one?”

Neither of them told him. He shrugged. “We’ll get him. Alberic has patrols out; the little man’s spitting venom for you three, and the magic box of tricks.” But his eye was on the Sekoi, and Raffi knew all at once something else was on his mind.

“Tell me where he is or I tie you up and we move out now.” But the man didn’t move, and he was looking at the gold. Raffi felt a sudden quiver of hope.

Godric edged forward. “Won a lot, didn’t you?”

The Sekoi’s fur rose silently around its neck. “I was lucky.”

“So I saw.” Suddenly he lowered the bolt, just a fraction. “All right. Listen. Give me the gold, and you and the boy go free. I never even set eyes on you. Agreed?”

The Sekoi gave an eerie low hiss—a terrifying sound. “Never,” it breathed.

“I mean it.”

“So do I.” The creature’s eyes were slits, dark as chasms.

Raffi’s heart sank.

“Suit yourself. I’ll take it anyway.”

But like lightning the Sekoi moved; it turned and was gone into the dark. With an oath of fury Godric leaped in and grabbed Raffi; a great arm tugged his hair back, the crossbow bolt pressed horrifyingly into his neck.

Raffi froze; only the slightest of pressures would have set it off.

“The gold!” Godric roared. “Put it down in the road or I kill him!”

There was a long silence. Then the Sekoi’s voice came, strangled and odd from somewhere close. “I’m sorry, Raffi,” it said.

“You can’t just leave me!” he yelled, appalled.

He could almost feel the Sekoi squirm. “The gold,” it hissed. “I have to keep the gold!”

“You scum.” Godric spat in disgust. “What do you people do with it all? Alberic would love to find the Hidden Hoard. Does it exist, Graycat? Is it real?”

“Alberic could drown in it,” the creature purred.

“Could he!” Godric sounded tight with anger. The crossbow quivered; Raffi gripped his hands together.

But the bolt that shattered the darkness was blue; an enormous flash that burst in his head like a flame, and as blackness crashed back he felt the wyvern again, roaring and falling down upon him, into some endless pit.