The Margrave

17

With Flain gone, all Anara mourned. Plants would not grow; the beasts lay down and died. Even the skies wept a gray snow, and the Makers sat cold and silent around an empty throne.

Book of the Seven Moons

THEY HAD TIED HIM and put him on a horse, though he was so stiff, he could hardly sit. For about three hours, as far as he could tell, they had ridden west; one Watchman leading, two others behind.

No one spoke. It was dark, a warm mothy twilight, and to suppress the threads of terror that squirmed through him, Raffi let his mind surge out into the sense-lines, into the relief of finding them again after the blank shock of the Journey. Above him the moons rose slowly, swinging over the stark line of the Wall, but the only sounds were the rippling brooks the road crossed on narrow arches, and the hoot of an owl far off in some woodland.

The night was peaceful, and he let it soothe him. He knew they were taking him to Maar, but his mind veered off that darkness and he was happy to let it. He had always thought it would be some stark, forbidding place, but this was a quiet cultivated countryside, the fields freshly sown, smelling of rain, the small farmsteads with candle-flickers inside their unshuttered windows. He sent lines into the houses as he passed, rocking for a second in the cradle of a baby, tucked in under warm sheets, kissed on his forehead.

The horse stumbled. “Keep awake,” a Watchman snarled.

With both hands, Raffi grabbed the rough mane. They were taking him to Maar. After all his efforts, his foolish running, he was going there, where the Makers must want him to go. “We can never fall out of the hands of the Makers.” He almost heard Galen’s scorn. Oddly enough, it was some comfort. Carys might be at Maar, Galen close behind. It would be all right, he told himself carefully, intently. “Flain,” he whispered, “keep me in your hand.”

Down the lanes the horses clattered, weary now. And ahead, rising out of the Wall, he saw a shape. It was black against the stars, so black at first, his eyes could not understand what it was, its darkness astounding him; a low cube without windows, without any decoration or surface features, completely and utterly smooth. A Maker-building. Intact.

Its blackness was so matte, it was hard to focus on, as if it were a vacuum, an absence, a cube of nothing. Only the lack of stars showed where it was. As he rode nearer, the harness creaking in the silence, he saw how the glow of the moons did not reflect from it. It swallowed light, a place of non-being that even the sense-lines could not penetrate. All around it, stirring in the warm breeze, tiny black flowers covered the ground. In the dark Raffi could hardly see them, but he felt them, and they were like nothing else on Anara. Their smell was sweet, almost cloying.

Before the building the Watchmen halted. The one in front rode a few steps forward, and waited. He made no signal as far as Raffi could see, but after a moment, abruptly, a small door slid open and a man came out, in Watch uniform. He and the guard spoke quietly, glancing back.

Raffi looked around. He was so tense, he felt sick. He had to do something, but what? He could startle the horses, maybe even the men, but he was tied and at the first gallop would fall, and what use would that be?

The horse whickered, sidestepped, and a cold blade was pressed into the back of his neck. “Any sorcery,” the guard said briefly, “and you’re dead. Understand?”

He nodded. It was too late anyway. The Watchman turned and waved. The others dragged Raffi down and shoved him forward, standing well back. “Not coming?” he said, shivering with fear.

“Not us.” The guard grinned. “Nobody goes in there. Go on. Walk. It’s the last walk you’ll ever get.”

He stepped between the black flowers. They drew aside from his feet; he felt the surface beneath them, and it wasn’t rock. It was solid and wouldn’t admit his mind. And from the low building ahead, he felt a constant hum, never varying.

The Watchman by the door wore a different uniform; his insignia was gold, and a small gold stripe crossed his sleeve. He had no weapons, and didn’t speak, gesturing with his head for Raffi to go first. At the last second he wanted to struggle, run, but there was nowhere to run to. He stepped inside, and the door snicked shut behind them.

This was Maar.

IT WAS DARK. Corridors ran in all directions, lit only by a glimmer of blue Maker-power at ankle level along the walls. Raffi walked beside the guard, amazed. There was no sound, no scurry, no one. Even their footsteps were muffled. He had expected something like Carys’s description of the Tower of Song—a vast swarming anthill, a hub of Watch organization, but this sleek, faintly warm darkness terrified him more. And what were the Watch doing with all this Maker-power?

The guard stopped. On the wall was a relic, a red light. He touched it, and it turned green. Raffi breathed a prayer silently; the Watchman gave him a glance of contempt, but said nothing.

A door slid open. Beyond it was a tiny cell, completely enclosed. Instantly Raffi took a step back. “No!” he gasped, but the Watchman pushed him in firmly, so that he fell against the smooth Maker-wall, his tied hands flat. To his surprise the guard stepped in after him. The door snicked shut.

Back against the wall, Raffi faced the man. “I won’t tell you anything,” he said.

“Shut up.” The Watchman touched a dial. Without warning, the room dropped. It plummeted, and Raffi almost cried out with the terror of it, his stomach tingling in shock. The guard stood calmly watching. Raffi grabbed at the smooth walls. “Will it stop?” he whispered.

The man smiled, mirthless. “Let’s hope so.”

Down and down they fell, all the sense-lines dragged after them until he couldn’t hold them anymore and they snapped and snagged, tiny points of pain behind his eyes: down and down into the depths of the planet, leaving behind roots and veined rocks and the sky, until with a smooth whoosh the fall had ended and he staggered against the guard, who caught his arm.

The door opened. Complete darkness was waiting for him.

“CATO’S CLEFT.” Quist stood back to let a wagon of stones roll by. “We’d better eat here. Permission for Maar could take hours.”

They crossed to a few makeshift tables of piled stone outside a shack with steam coming from its roof. A slatternly woman came out.

Scala flicked dirt off the bench. “Hardly what I’m used to.” She gave the woman a warm smile. “What have you to offer us, then?”

“Stew, Castellan.”

“Is that all?”

“Today’s Agramonsday, so it’s stew. Watch ration.”

Scala sighed, and nodded. When the woman was gone she reached out and began to play with the fingers of Quist’s hand on the table. He watched lazily.

Carys frowned. “So now what? They’re not just going to let me walk into Maar.”

“Even as our prisoner?”

“What!”

“Don’t worry! It’s just a little plan.” Scala bent Quist’s thumb back, trying to make him wince. “We say we have to deliver you in person. Tie you loosely.”

“No chance!” Carys fixed her with a cold stare. “We’re partners in this. I’m not giving up my weapons. You agreed.”

“Oh come now, Carys.” Scala’s bright eyes were watching her, ignoring the dishes of stew being plonked down. “Don’t you trust us? We get you to Maar—you give us the information about the boy, we all share the reward. You’re reinstated, I’m promoted. We’re all happy.” Delicately she picked up the wooden spoon.

Carys knew something was wrong. Old Jellie’s warnings came back and crawled down her spine—when they’re trying to distract you, be careful. Extra careful. Picking up her own spoon she tasted the greasy liquid. Scala had some plan, all right, and if they suspected her now, she was finished. She had to lead Galen to the Margrave. Then she realized Quist wasn’t eating. Instead he was staring at Scala with a curious fixity, his meal getting cold, the work racket and dust around them forgotten.

Scala paused, the spoon to her red lips. “What? What’s the matter?”

“My God,” he breathed slowly, in disbelief. “You did it. You really did it!”

“Did what?” She blew on the stew and sipped at it, making a face, but he leaned over and caught her arm, spilling it on the table.

“You killed him.” His voice was hoarse; his hand shook.

She tugged briskly away.

Carys was chilled. “Killed who?”

“The blind man.” He was staring at Scala as if he had never seen her before, the very skin on his face white and drawn.

Scala sipped calmly. Then she said, “Yes.”

“How do you know?” Carys asked.

Scala smiled. “Yes, tell her how you know, lover.”

He looked sick. “How could you do that! You promised me . . .”

“He struck me.” There was nothing to show her anger, but it was there, deep and venomous, and she tore the hard bread carefully with her small nails. “No one does that. I owed it to myself to—”

“He was blind, for Flain’s sake!” Quist stood up, his chair falling back with a smack. A few Watchmen looked around.

Scala’s smile was icy. “Don’t make a scene. Sit down. Do you want us all taken in for questioning?”

For a moment, Carys thought he wouldn’t; then slowly, stiffly, he picked up the chair and sat on it.

“You should put all that behind you, Captain. I thought you’d have learned by now.” She glanced at Carys. “Carys understands.”

Carys put the spoon down. Not answering was dangerous, but she could barely manage to say “Of course I do,” and she couldn’t look at Quist.

“Good. Now. When I was signing us in I had news of our lost castle. The warlord who took Halen is one Alberic . . .”

Carys swallowed a piece of bread whole.

“. . . and he’s obviously ambitious. He’s moving west along the Wall. The Crow is with him.”

“The Crow!” Quist said.

“Yes.” Scala was watching Carys. “Your old friend, my dear. They have an army and a divine mission: the total destruction of the Watch. Word is that the disaffected are flocking to join them: outlaws, thieves, keepers. The host is growing every day.” She smiled sweetly at them both. “It appears to be war. Everyone will be busy. Too busy to notice us.”

“Meaning?” Carys said quietly.

“Meaning that we go to Maar now, without permits. And bluff our way in.”

GALEN HAD TAKEN THE BEADS APART and spread them in a hasty spiral, the purple and blue interspaced with his own black and green. In the center he put the candles Godric had found and the bowl of water carefully between them. “It is clean? No one’s drunk from it?”

“No one.”

“And the vessel? Not tainted with anything?”

“Keeper, that’s my best fingerbowl. It’s Palmyrian silver and was looted from a very wealthy merchant in my days on the Tasceron road.” Alberic leaned forward, his sly wide-lipped reflection rocking on the water.

Galen shoved him back. His anxiety crackled out of him, small blue snaps that made some of the crystals glow. He kneeled and began to speak Maker-words; the Sekoi recognized some of them. It was the prayer known as the Opening—one of the seven great powers of the Order. Tamar had sung it first, over the Lake Imakel, when the Makers had tried all methods to find the soul of Flain, lost in the Underworld. It was one of the creature’s favorite stories, and for a second it allowed itself the honeyed pleasure of slipping into the tale, spreading its seven fingers, speaking the words through Tamar, becoming the strong Starman on the snowy shore. Then, with a sigh, it slid back to itself.

Galen had finished; the silence was intense. All around him Alberic’s war band crowded, curious and quiet. Milo peered under the Sekoi’s arm. “What will happen?”

“Hush. The keeper will travel to Maar through the water.”

“Why there?”

“He fears that Raffi will be there.”

As it spoke, they saw the water ripple. A shape came into it, a low darkness. Curious, the Sekoi strained forward. All the crystals were charged, small energies leaping from one to the next. The creature thought for a moment that it saw a building, a strange blank cube with a group of riders outside it, and then there was nothing, except on the surface of the water a few floating petals that seemed black.

Galen reached out and picked them up. He looked at them carefully, then rolled them in his fingers and turned. “Saddle up. It’s time to go.”

“Is that it?” Alberic was peeved. “No bangs, no flashes? Nothing to excite the troops? You’re slipping, keeper.”

Galen’s eyes were black as the petals. “I know where he is.”

“Why didn’t you find out sooner?”

“I didn’t know where to look. I was too deep in doubt.” He laughed, in a way that made the dwarf eye him warily. “All the time I was telling him to have faith, I had none in him.”

“Clear off. All of you.” Suddenly imperious, Alberic waved his people away; disappointed, they drifted into the wood, leaving only the Sekoi leaning against a birch trunk. Alberic crouched. “He’s at Maar then.”

Galen nodded.

“Long?”

“No.”

“Have they hurt him?”

Galen looked away. “I don’t know.”

“They will. You know it as well as I.”

There was a moment of silence. Instead of answering, Galen said, “Do you know how I first came across him?”

“Tell me.” Alberic glanced at the Sekoi and sat on the dry ground, on his green silk coat-ends.

“I came to his mother’s farm. Flain had told me this was the place. There were a lot of children—seven, maybe eight. From the doorway, as I was talking to her, I saw him. He was in the middle of the row, all of them on a bench by the fire, swinging their feet, eating—but he wasn’t eating, he was staring at me. And later, when I had said the Litany, I came and laid out on the table seven small images a wood-painter in some village had given me. They were of the Makers, and I had decided that whoever chose the image of Theriss—it was her day—would be my scholar. When it was Raffi’s turn to choose, I felt the power in him, the curiosity. The longing. It was strong, for a boy so young. I knew he was the one.” He picked up the beads quickly. “She asked me to take care of him.”

Alberic shrugged. “Mothers fuss. You did, in your way.”

“Not well enough. And now we have to find him. To go even into Maar.”

“You’ll go, friend. Not me.”

Galen stood and looked down, his dark hair loose. Then he put out a hand and took the dwarf’s and pulled him up. He turned, but Alberic said, “Did he choose Theriss?”

The Relic Master stopped and looked back. “No,” he said softly. “He chose Kest.”