The Lost Heiress

23

Bind a bright web about the doubtful

soul.

If you pull hard, it will come to you.

Apocalypse of Tamar

AND WHY SHOULD I?” Alberic was peevish; he shivered in his quilted robe, a fur-lined cloak clutched tight around him.

“Because if you don’t,” Galen stormed, “I’ll go alone and you can burn in your own hell!” The keeper was reckless with black fury; Raffi knew that in this mood he might do anything.

Alberic knew it too.

“All right.” The thief-lord waved a sickly hand. “Get the lads out, Taran. Search groups of ten. We want the child alive.” He looked at Galen slyly. “And the fat man? He’s good for a thousand marks.”

“I don’t care.” The keeper snatched his staff down from the horse, the rain lashing between them. “Raffi, come with me.” He glanced at Carys. “You too, if you want.”

She nodded, loading the bow. Her face was taut and white. Raffi felt strange memories in her, and anger. Deep anger.

They slipped between the trees. Galen had his own way of tracking; he followed the glints and taints of feelings, the tiny intricate sense-traces. He led them down a gloomy trail between holly and larch, the trees thickening as they went, the ravine’s shattered cliff looming somewhere behind the rain.

Shouts rang in the wood. Behind them Alberic came, scowling and limping, Godric a big shadow behind him.

Galen questioned trees and owls, swiftly, silently, bursting straight to their deep consciousness, leaving them dizzy. He was ruthless, and Raffi felt the sore echoes of it. But Braylwin had come this way. Pictures of them flickered in his third eye: the big man carrying the child easily, under his arm.

“I’m surprised he could go this fast,” he gasped.

Carys glanced back. “He’s fitter than you’d think. He can run when he wants to. All that puffing is an act.”

The trail scrambled down, broke into scree and falling rock. It was dark down here, softened with mist, every branch black and dripping. A were-bird screeched, and Galen slipped, jamming his stick into the mud with a curse.

At the bottom, distorted rowans sprouted, their thin boles white and spindly. The track split in two. Galen crouched, hands on the wet rocks, sending his mind far into soil and puddles and clotted leaves. But Carys darted forward and picked something out of the left-hand track. “Don’t bother. She’s Watchtrained, remember?”

It was the toy night-cub. She threw it to Raffi, who jammed it into his pocket; Galen was already gone, pushing his way among the sprawling branches. Moss and lichen coated everything; down here the rocks and trees were green in the gloom. It all smelled rich and rotten, the path choked with strange ghostly moonflowers that grew too high, grotesquely twisting after the light.

Crashing through them, Raffi heard water; the roar of it, falling from some unguessed height. Then his sense-lines touched it, and were swept away into a moving flow of energy, patterned by rainbows.

“He’s close!” Galen yelled. “Get ready!”

They burst out into a clearing; before them the black waters of a torrent glinted over the stones. Down the cliff a great waterfall roared, a deafening crash of water, the foam at its base endlessly breaking and whirling away in bubbled white patches.

It was almost too loud to think; the sense-lines jangled, and Raffi felt suddenly dizzy, as if someone had slapped him hard on the side of the head. Galen looked around too, disoriented. “Can you see him?”

A crossbow bolt thumped into wood behind them; Carys yanked Raffi down among the moonflowers.

“Idiot!” she yelled above the water-crash. “Keep down!”

At least now they knew Braylwin was armed. And just then, as if the Makers had ordered it, the river mist thinned, and through its frail wisps the seven moons shone clear, a ragged formation that was almost the Arch, though Lar was just a crescent and the strange pitted surface of Karnos was too far down among the trees.

Galen glanced up. He said nothing aloud, but Raffi sensed his prayer, some deep affirmation he couldn’t recognize.

“Can you see him?” Carys called.

Galen shook his head. But his eyes were closed; he was feeling with his mind, and on the ground he had laid one ring of awen-beads and a small hazel twig. He turned it gently in his fingers as they watched.

Then it stopped, pointing across the river, to the right of the falls. Raffi strained his eyes to see what was there, but the dapples of moonlight and the energy-field of the water were bewildering. Stripes of pearl and rose filtered down the rock face.

Galen tugged on the beads. Pulling Carys closer, he said in her ear, “I’ll get him to concentrate on me. You move up the bank.” She nodded; his hand tightened. “Keep the Interrex safe, Carys.”

She laughed, and said something Raffi couldn’t hear; then she was gone, slithering into the moonflowers. “Go with her,” Galen yelled.

Raffi hesitated.

“Do as you’re told, boy!”

He turned, pushing between the tall stalks, uneasy. Galen was too exposed. The sense-lines were useless here. Everything echoed and rang. He wondered if Braylwin had known this would happen.

Worming along in the moonflowers, he worried about blue spiders and vesps. This was just the sort of place for them, and he’d never even feel them on him. He shivered. Ahead, Carys crawled, and the moons’ light quivered on the crashing water.

Then, just below the fall, a flicker of movement over the river caught his eye. He stopped, straining to see in the dimness. From rock to rock near the cliff base a black figure climbed, bulky but swift.

“Carys!” he hissed, but she was too far ahead to hear.

Turning back, Raffi saw Braylwin wedge himself securely, bracing his feet. Then he whipped the crossbow up and aimed it, his eye looking down the bolt. Raffi leaped up, glancing back. Galen stood between two trees, the moonlight catching his shape.

“Galen!” Raffi screamed.

The bolt flashed, the keeper turned, and instantly a small figure leaped up at him and tore him down into a crash of shadows. Oblivious of danger, Raffi raced back, flinging himself down breathlessly as Godric came lumbering up.

Both of them stared.

Alberic was sitting up, swearing savagely, picking clots of mud off his cloak, Galen half lying in the leaves, staring at him. Just above their heads the crossbow bolt had splintered the rowan trunk in half.

“For Flain’s sake, you stupid, reckless fool, keep your head down!” the dwarf snarled.

Godric snorted with laughter; his chief glared up at him wrathfully. “You! Brainless! You’re assigned to him. If he dies I’ll have you skinned an inch at a time and hung out of my tower-top for the crows to pick at! Understand!”

The bearded man nodded, his grin still wide. Galen picked himself up stiffly. “You’re a better man than you want to be, thief-lord.”

Alberic ignored that. “A keeper for the keeper,” he said sourly. “But when this curse is off, Galen, I’ll make up for lost time, believe me!”

A shout made them scramble hastily to the river. Looking out, Raffi saw Carys, far off near the falls; she yelled again, pointing.

Braylwin had the girl with him now. In the moonlight they could see how he pushed her ahead of him up the cliff, climbing behind like a vast shadow, and far above in the mist strange birds called, their cries disturbed and wary.

Galen cursed; then he was gone, Godric swiftly behind him. Ignoring the dwarf, Raffi ran after them. They raced along the path, the torrent churning below them. There were huge rounded boulders in the stream; looking up, Raffi saw Carys leaping from one to another, perilously balanced, the waterfall crashing over her.

Braylwin was higher now, the little girl kicking and struggling, sending trickles of stone that rattled down the cliff. The Watchman struck her hard with his fist, but still she fought. Behind them, Carys fired her bow, but deep rocks and springing trees hid them. Shouldering the weapon, she began to climb.

Galen scrambled down to the rocks, crossing recklessly, and Raffi came after him. The roar and speed of the water filled him with fear; one slip and he knew it would whirl him away, crashing him downstream, snapping his limbs against boulders and tree stumps. Cold spray soaked him; his feet slithered every way, he wobbled and leaped through rainbows, and the moon-splashed crash of the fall was heavy as wet snow from a roof. One more jump. He landed on hands and knees in the mud, scrambled up, exhausted.

“Braylwin!”

Carys’s yell stopped them all.

Slowly the Watchman turned, crossbow ready.

She was just below him, feet braced, bolt aimed.

“Let her go!” she yelled.

In the moonlight they saw the big man’s smile. “You should come with me, Carys. We can share the profits.”

“I’d rather kill you,” she snarled.

He shook his head, the drops of water falling like silver slashes. “That’s better. For a while I thought they’d made a keeper of you. But revenge, that’s a Watchman’s act.”

“Yes,” she yelled. The bow didn’t waver. “Yes, it is. And this isn’t about Emperors or their heirs. This is about me. I don’t know who I am, Braylwin. I’ll probably never know. All I’ve learned is hunting and lying, that’s all you and your Watchlords want from me, that and never asking any questions. But I don’t believe it anymore. I’ve finished with them and you and your lies, because every time I look at that girl I see myself, and all the things you’ve done to me.”

He laughed, one hand tight on the bow. “Poor, dear Carys. It’s hardly my fault.”

“And not just me. All the others too.”

“The whole world, Carys! For the whole world is the Watch now. You’ll never get away from it. It’s even in you. Deep in you. And it always will be!” He twisted suddenly, grabbed Felnia and thrust her in front of him. Carys didn’t move.

“Don’t,” Galen said softly, just behind her. “He’s not worth your soul.”

She flicked a glance at him, amused. “Always trying, Galen. I’ll give you that.”

A rock shifted, crashed down. Instantly the little girl screeched and bit; he jerked her away and dropped the crossbow and she jumped, ledge to ledge, like a cat.

The bow clattered endlessly down, then splashed.

Braylwin was alone.

He drew himself up, held his arms wide. “Well, Carys,” he roared over the falls. “I’m ready now!”

Carys was still.

“You haven’t gone soft on me, have you, sweetie? You know what to do. You have to kill me now, Carys. Or you’re finished with the Watch.”

“No!” Galen said. “Carys, listen to me . . .”

“And you want to, don’t you!” Braylwin folded his arms. “Remember your training. Fast and firm. Do it now, girl.”

“Carys. For Flain’s sake . . .”

“Shut up, Galen.” Her face was wet. She didn’t even look down.

“It’s not the way!”

“Of course it is,” she snarled.

Then she fired.