The Lost Heiress

8

For Flain, the city of Tasceron, gold and sunlit;

For Tamar, Isel’s mountain, cold and high.

For Soren, the Pavilion of Song in the Green hills;

For Theriss, the blue chasms of the sea.

For Kest, the plain of Maar, abode of horrors.

Above them all the seven moons

and the Crow, flying between.

Litany of the Makers

IT HAD BEEN RAINING ALL DAY, and there was no sign of it stopping. Carys had given up; her hood hung useless and her hair streamed, trickling and dripping inside her soaked clothes. Shivering, she urged her horse on, seeing how the water oozed and bubbled out of the leather of her gloves.

Ahead, under a stand of black-leaved saltan trees, Braylwin and his three men were waiting. Wearily her horse splashed up to them, and she saw how the beasts’ red paint had smeared and dripped into the puddles below.

“Problem?” Braylwin asked absently. He was dressed in a vast black traveling cape that hung down below his stirrups; the rain pattered off it in torrents. It was stiff with wax.

“He’s going lame.” She slipped off, knee-deep in water.

Braylwin shook his head. “I’ve told you before to get yourself a better horse,” he said crisply, above the downpour. “And clothes, Carys! I like my patrol to be well turned out.”

Crouched over the horse’s hoof, she snapped, “I’m not as rich as you.”

“Ah, but that’s your fault, sweetie. Prize money is only the half of it. The small gifts of the people, the bribes, the little inducements. Your trouble, Carys, is being too long among keepers.”

She dropped the hoof and slapped the horse’s flank, then glared up. “That’s my business.”

His round face smiled down at her. “Is it?”

“How far are we from this wretched place?” she asked sullenly.

“How far?” He took a plump hand off the reins and pointed. “We’re here.”

She stared out. She saw a vastness, a rising shape, indistinct in the rain, gray in the misty drizzle. At first she had thought it was a cloud, a great bank of fog drifting up over the mountains, but now she realized with a cold awe that it was real, a vast building climbing the mountainside, rising in a countless series of rooms, stairways, balconies, and galleries, far away and immense, its topmost roofs white with snow. And up there, like a needle sharp with ice, one uttermost pinnacle flew the remote black pennant of the Watch.

The Tower of Song.

How Galen would have loved this, she thought, the rain running into her eyes and down her face, the heavy downpour hissing from the low gray skies. How it would have amazed Raffi. They’d have prayed, she thought wryly. Looking up at the vast, rain-clouded walls of it, she almost wanted to pray as well.

Braylwin had been watching her. Now, as the rain began to crash with a new ferocity, he turned his horse hastily. “Come on,” he called irritably. “Before we drown out here.”

She walked, leading her horse up the steep mountain track. The tower loomed above; she saw how it had been built over centuries, been added to, repaired, ruined, neglected, renovated. All the Emperors had spent their summers here, far from the heat of Tasceron, building their palace of luxuries around the lost core of Soren’s pavilion, the place she had chosen for her own when the Makers divided the Finished Lands between them, long ago. Now the Watch held it, one of their greatest fastnesses, and here were stored rooms of confiscated tribute, loot, treasures. And the records, the vast bureaucracy of files and papers and reports of its millions of agents. If she really wanted to find out about herself, about the Watch, about the Interrex, this would be the place. But she’d have to be careful. Very careful.

Hauling the horse up over the slippery pebbles, she wiped her face and scowled at Braylwin’s back. He came here every year for his winter quarters, warm and dry. Here they’d stay—until she had word from Galen. Irritated, she shook her head. She should have warned Galen.

It took an hour to clamber up to the outer barbican, and another half hour to satisfy the searchers, fill in identity forms, get their papers and permissions and passes to the inner courtyards.

Trailing behind Braylwin across the cobbled yards and under the porticoes, she was amazed at the crowds of people: scribes, clerks, scriveners, translators. There were men dragging great trolley-loads of papers, long lines at doors, crowds around notices pinned to hundreds of boards. Most of them were sleek and well-fed; only a few were field agents or post-riders, looking far more weatherworn. Climbing one vast staircase, she looked down and saw an endless miserable line disappearing under one porch—not Watch, but tired-looking men, haggard women, a few lounging Sekoi.

“What are they?”

Braylwin paused long enough to glance down. “Petitioners. People looking for their families. Criminals. Nohopers.”

He climbed on clumsily. After a minute she ran after him.

His apartments were about a mile into the labyrinth of rooms and corridors they called the Underpalace; she realized after a while that even with all her training she was hopelessly lost. When they got there he went along a narrow passageway, banging doors open, tutting over dust, fussing at ornaments that weren’t where he’d left them. She knew the men-at-arms would sleep outside his door when on duty, otherwise in the endless dormitories all Watchholds had. She was expecting that for herself, but Braylwin beckoned her coyly to the end of the corridor and flung a door open. “For you, sweetie.”

She peered in.

A tiny room, with a bed and an empty hearth and a chest, and rain dripping into a pool, but when she’d crossed to the window and looked out she smiled, for the room was high in some turret, and it hung out into the sky over the tangle of lanes and courtyards and alleys far below.

She was glad it was up on its own. She was already beginning to dislike the Tower of Song.

“It’ll do,” she said, turning.

Braylwin smirked from the door. “Yes. For keeping an eye on you, Carys.”

It took her three days even to find a map of the place. In the mornings Braylwin would dictate long reports of the summer’s tax-gatherings to a harassed clerk who had been ordered to work with him.

The man deserved a medal, Carys thought darkly, watching the sleek Watchleader tease and flatter and make a fool of him. Harnor, his name was. Once she saw him give her a quick, exasperated glance, but he never lost his temper, and Braylwin smirked and preened and invented endless imaginary accounts until he tired of the game and sent one of the men-at-arms to fetch his dinner. After that he spent the long, wet afternoons sleeping, or entertaining the gaggle of unpleasant cronies he called friends.

Carys was rarely needed, but he kept her hanging around; only in the afternoons could she vanish without suspicion. “Take a tootle around,” he said once, filing his broad nails. “This place is a labyrinth, Carys, you’ll never find anything you need in it. Your friend Galen will love it, when we bring him in.” And he winked at her, so that she wanted to spit.

One thing she realized soon was that the rain here was eternal. The weather must have changed since the Emperor’s time, because now the tower loomed constantly in its cloud of drizzle; all the long afternoons rain trickled in runnels and gutters and spouts, spattering through gargoyles of hideous beasts and goblins that spat far down on the heads of hurrying clerks. Always the roofs ran with water; it dripped and plopped and splashed through culverts and drains, or sheeted down, a relentless liquid gurgle that never stopped, until she started to imagine that this was the song the tower sang, through all the throats and mouths and pipes of its endless body.

At first she wandered without direction, just trying to find her way back to the nearest courtyard, but she soon realized that was hopeless; once it took her three hours to find Braylwin’s rooms again.

As she climbed the stairs wearily, Harnor was coming out.

“How do you find your way around this warren?” she snapped.

He looked at her in surprise. “The maps. How else?”

“Maps? Where?”

For a moment he glanced at her. Then he pushed the thick folder of paper under one arm. “I’ll show you.”

He led her down three stairways and along a gallery that had once been painted with brilliant birds. Now only the ghosts of them lingered, and great damp patches of lichen were furring them over. At the end he stopped and opened a small door. “There’s one in here.”

She went in after him warily, but through the door was nothing but a balcony, and looking down from it, she saw she was above a great echoing hall, full of desks and the murmur of voices. Coins were being counted down there, millions of them. She grinned, thinking of the Sekoi.

“This is the map. There are many, and they’re scattered around the Underpalace. Would you like some paper? You could make a copy. It takes a while to find your way around otherwise.”

As Harnor riffled through the file for a clean sheet, Carys watched him curiously. He looked pale, as if he never went outside. He found a piece and gave it to her.

“Thanks. How long have you been here, Watchman?”

“All my life.” He smiled sourly. “Forty years and more. Once I hoped I’d be a field agent, but not anymore. Too old.”

She nodded, looking up at the map: an immense sprawl of rooms and courtyards painted on the wall, each with its name in silver. “This isn’t Watchwork.”

“It’s from the Emperor’s time. There are many remnants of those days scattered around. Most have been destroyed, but the place is so huge . . .”

“Have you ever explored it all?” she asked quietly.

He looked up, a strange, almost frightened look. “Of course not. No one has. There are places that are not allowed.”

Carys had turned and begun to draw; now her pencil stopped. “What places?”

He looked uneasy. “The Great Library . . . and others. I’m not sure, really.”

She looked at him. He was small, his hair graying early, his beard clipped. He looked away. “Is that all?”

She nodded, thoughtful. “Thank you. Yes, that’s all.”

Watching him hurry out, she knew he was afraid of her. That was normal. Everyone in the Watch spied on everyone else; it was their strength. But there had been something else; she had felt it, that sliver of danger. She’d always been good at that. “Top of the class again,” old Jellie had wheezed, back in the cold hall of the Watchhouse on Marn Mountain, and all the others in the class would stare, spiteful and envious and friendly, all the ones who had lived with her there, all the children the Watch had stolen . . .

She bit her lip and went grimly back to the map.

It took her an hour or so to make a copy, and even then it was rough and hasty. The names of the rooms enchanted her: the Gallery of Laughter—what was that like? And the Corridor of the Broken Vases—what had happened there? Even when she’d finished she knew this was only the Underpalace. There was far more than this: secret rooms and whole wings that needed extra passes even to get to. And above that the Overpalace, totally unknown. But it was a start.

Back in her room that night, chewing dainty filled rolls left from Braylwin’s latest party, she lay on the bed and pored over the map, ignoring the relentless rain plopping into the filling bucket. Then she leaned back and gazed up at the ceiling. Where to begin? First she needed to find out about herself. And then—she frowned, because this was treachery, and if they knew it she’d be in deep trouble—then she had to find out if Galen was right. He said the Watch was evil.

And what did they do with all the relics they found? Destroyed them as abominations, she had always been taught; but since then, not only from Galen, she’d heard other things. That the relics were stored here, great rooms of them. That they held real power. She scowled, knowing she’d seen that for herself. And another rumor, never spoken out loud, only hinted at. That the Watch had a Ruler; that somewhere, above all the sergeants and castellans and committees and commanders and Watchlords there was someone else, someone secret, who knew everything. She shook her head. She’d never told this to Galen or Raffi, and even now she doubted it was true. But she had to find out.

Rolling over, she put a finger on the map, on a small corridor that ran north. That was the way. Higher up, there would be fewer people. She had a high clearance, she could certainly get that far. The corridor led to a place called the Hall of Moons. Under that, in Watchletters, was the word Births. Tomorrow she’d try there.

It was as she sat up and reached for another roll that she saw the eye. It stared at her out of the wall, unblinking, and for a second an ice-cold fear stabbed her, and she half grabbed the bow, and then breathed out, and laughed at herself.

The eye watched her, clear and sharp.

Carys got up and crossed to it. Taking a small knife from her pocket, she reached up and hacked at the plaster; it was damp and fell in lumps.

Slowly the figure appeared, gorgeously painted in golds and reds; a great bearded man, carrying a black night-cub that struggled in his arms. She knew who he was. Tamar, the Maker who had made the animals. The one who had been the enemy of Kest.

She lay back on the bed and gazed at him. Two months ago, in Tasceron, Galen had spoken to these Makers. She had heard them answer him.

Or thought she had.

Long into the wet night, she stared at the figure on her wall.