The Margrave

22

I had thought this the darkest place of the soul, that there could be no worse, but I was wrong. For I had made evil into a shape and spoken to it, and it mocked me. It was my own face in a mirror; When I looked up it was always there.

Sorrows of Kest

“WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE THESE?” Raffi wandered down the rows of cages, appalled. Here were all the creatures of a world’s nightmares: strange amalgams of species, things with spines and twisted limbs, extra organs, unimaginable diseases. The misery and horror of their minds hung around him in the darkness; he could barely breathe in it.

The beasts fled at his approach, dug themselves into straw. In one cage an apelike thing with pale, hairless skin hugged itself; in another, small snakes shed their skins rapidly, over and over.

“That’s a little something for myself.” The Margrave gripped the mesh and looked at the snakes peevishly. “Skin-shedding I detest. I have to undergo it at regular intervals. Kest might have made my skin more durable than yours, but at a price, and I have long worked on the problem. Not with any degree of success.”

“It will kill them,” Raffi said miserably.

“Probably. It usually does.”

He stared at it. Its jewel-bright eyes looked back. “I knew this would disturb you. My policy is to show you everything, Raffi. To hold nothing back. This way.” It led him through workshop after workshop, dim gleaming palaces stuffy with heat, their Maker-surfaces reflecting the scuttling shapes of unknowable beasts, of vast machines and racks of glass vials and diagrams that flickered on lit screens. Underfoot, in the shadows, tiny things ran and squeaked.

“A few get out,” the Margrave said idly. “Over the centuries they will no doubt have produced some interesting subspecies.”

Raffi felt sick, and shaky. Down at the end of the room a dark Sekoi was cleaning out cages. “Why?” he whispered. “Why are you doing it? What is it all for?”

“Why am I doing it?” The Margrave looked astonished. “But Raffi, this is not my work. It’s the Makers’.”

He shook his head. “Kest’s, you mean. You called him your father.”

“So he was, genetically. Does that make me one of the Makers too?” It seemed amused with the idea, rustling into its breathy laugh. Then, seeing his stricken shock, it put a scaly hand on Raffi’s shoulder. “Forgive me. This must be hard for you. Come down here.”

It walked on quickly, a rustling slender shadow between the high cages. “You see, in your stories Kest had become the one who tampered, the one who created evil, and in a way that is true, but the harsh fact is, Raffi, that all the Makers manipulated genetic material. Some species they brought from Earth could not survive on Anara without modifications. That was the start of it. They introduced new strains of crops, more hardy breeds. But these species affected others. Populations rose or were made extinct; habitats began to be altered and the Makers found they had started something they could not control. Anara is a vibrant, teeming world. Vast colonies of insects spread diseases they had not even known of; interbreeding and mutation were rife; forests were destroyed, deserts appeared almost overnight. The very planet began to warp. They found they were not gods after all.”

Raffi listened to it with dread. Its voice mocked him with pleasantry. Coming to a circular staircase, it led him down, muffled and echoing. “‘Keep to the program,’ Tamar kept saying. ‘It will work out.’ It never did.”

The steps rang under his feet; the air was hot and sulfurous and they seemed to be deep in caves now, cut out of bedrock. Through his misery, Raffi saw that the floor was carved with great channels, and through them lava flowed, curling and crisping to cinders on top, always swept away. The heat was intense. Small bridges spanned the flows; in places huge holes gaped where steam hissed out.

The air was thick with strange gases; he almost choked, his eyes running with water, both hands over his nose and mouth.

The Margrave waved a proud hand. “The very depths of the Pits of Maar. The heart of Anara. There are tunnels down here I have not trodden in centuries. All under the planet’s crust they run, who knows where. Once I spent months deep under the Tower of Song; another time I walked for hours through the drains and sewers up into the eternal darkness of Tasceron and explored its alleys, a muffled figure in the dark. So much is unknown, Raffi! So much we might never know.”

Raffi whispered, “When they come back, we will.”

The Margrave eyed him sadly through the jets of steam and the lurid fiery glow. “You already know, don’t you,” it said quietly, “that they are never coming back.”

He wanted to answer, to scream defiance, to run, to get out, but the airlessness made him weak. He leaned wearily against the wall. “I can’t breathe.”

“I know. But I wanted to show you this place, because this is where I was born. In here.”

It was a chamber in the center of the cave, a sphere of some crystalline glass. It rose out of the steamy chamber like a vast pearl. The Margrave reached out and smoothed its surface. “Kest called it the womb of the world,” it said, its voice hoarse. “Flain said it was a crucible of fire.”

Raffi stared through the shimmering air, stepping forward. For a second then, through the drift of gases, he had thought he had seen something inside, like a curled body, a mass of wires suspended in fluid. The air choked him. Chest heaving, he tried a sense-line, and knew at once.

“There’s something alive in there.”

The Margrave looked up at him, its eyes swiveling to his face. “Long ago, Raffi, I knew I could not live alone. Endlessly I have tried to repeat Kest’s work.” It turned and put both hands on the glass, leaning its face against the steamy heat. “But I cannot make another like myself,” it whispered. “Until I find one of the Sekoi’s children.”

For a moment Raffi stood rigid; then he turned and stumbled up the stairs, gasping, tripping, clutching at the smooth hot rail, and when he had hauled himself to the top he doubled over, coughing and retching, his whole body cold with sweat. He crouched, desolate. He felt so alone, as if there were no world out there at all, no sky, no Sarres, that he was alone in this darkness, this terrible nightmare. “Galen.” He said the name like a prayer. “Galen.”

Behind him he heard the creature’s rustle as it climbed up, but he couldn’t face it yet, couldn’t bear to see it. He stumbled numbly back to the cluttered room.

LATER, IT CAME IN AND SAT BESIDE HIM, near the brazier. For a while it was silent; then it touched the tray. “You haven’t eaten.”

“No.” He stared listlessly into the flames. It was always cruelty he had feared; the savagery of the Watch. Not this. He hadn’t been prepared for this. For kindness. For the creature’s way of telling him its secrets. He should hate it—he did hate it, for what it had done, for the destruction of the Order. But if this was hatred, it was strange, it was like pity. Nothing was clear anymore. Nothing was clear.

The Margrave ate quietly, watching him, its long tongue flicking out after fragments.

Finally Raffi spoke. “You’re trying to turn me against the Makers. It won’t work.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“The Order knows the truth.”

“The Order had legends and broken relics. Out of them it has created a dream. A beautiful, remarkable dream.”

Raffi rubbed his head in both hands. He felt desperate. “They came from God. They were not evil.”

“No, they were not evil. But they created evil. And as for God . . .” The Margrave gave a shrug. “Of that being, I have no knowledge.” It smiled its lipless smile, the scales of its skin glistening. “When I was in Solon, and saw the body of Kest, Raffi, what a shock that gave me. To see him again, after so long. In all my long life he has been my only companion. He taught me everything, though he was a quiet, dry man, sparing with words. He had fallen out with Tamar and Flain and Soren, so he stayed here and worked with me. For years no one else even knew I existed. When they found out, they wanted to kill me. But in the end, they couldn’t.” It shrugged. “And it was too late. For Kest. For the planet.”

“What were they like?” he whispered. “Really like?”

“Flain was tall indeed, a man with great authority but frayed with care. Tamar, frankly, I detested, and he me. His expertise was fauna development—perhaps he thought he should have created me himself. Soren, I rarely saw. The others, Theriss and Halen only once, when they came here at the end. Both had been made bitter by their ordeal.”

Quite suddenly, the whole room shook. Far below, the machines made a great rumble. The Margrave stood anxiously, but the sound settled and it sat again, slowly. “They will fail soon,” it muttered.

“Can I ask you something?” Raffi said absently.

“Of course.”

“It’s just that . . . in the Book it speaks of the seven Makers, but there are only ever six. Kest, Flain, Tamar, Halen, Soren, Theriss. The other one is never mentioned. There are no stories of him, no images. I asked Galen about it once, but he said it was the deepest secret of the Order and may well have been lost, but I’m sure he knew more than that.” He bit his lip nervously. “Was it you they meant?”

The Margrave raised a scaly eyebrow. “I don’t know. I know of only six. Though I was kept in here, and never went outside.” It frowned. “I have only seen your precious sunlight dimly, Raffi, through Solon’s eyes. Kest in his wisdom made a bad mistake with the optical nerves. I cannot bear the light.”

Raffi was silent. Then he said, “Maybe he did it deliberately.”

The Margrave’s frown cleared. It seemed amazed. “Do you think so?” It shook its head. “In all the years, I have never thought of that! It is so good, Raffi—”

“To have me here. I know.” His voice was grim.

The Margrave looked piqued. “Come now, my scholar. You will settle. After all, it’s better than your other life. Do I insist you starve yourself, make you fast, make you sleep out in all weathers? Are you hunted here?”

“No.”

“Do I make you learn huge chunks of unprofitable books?”

“NO.”

The Margrave laughed. “And do you have to endure my terrible moods? My black rages? I am a temperate creature, Raffi, compared to your last master.”

Raffi’s chest ached. “Don’t abuse Galen,” he snarled, the intensity of it surprising even him.

“I will not, although he deserves it. Your loyalty to him is remarkable. I cannot see how you stayed with him so long.” With its taloned fingers, it selected a fruit and bit into it. Raffi stood, restless. “So you miss him,” it said quietly.

“Yes, I miss him! And I miss the sun and the trees and the weather! I can’t live cooped up down here! I can’t live like this!”

“Then we must do something about it. Perhaps you would be better off without the abilities of the Order—the only things they have that I really envy.”

He went cold. “What do you mean, without them?”

The Margrave just waved its hand. “I can take them away. If you want.”

Dread stirred in him. “No. Never.”

“So be it,” it said quietly.

Raffi came and stood behind it near the brazier, red light edging his face. “And what if I killed you,” he breathed. “And escaped.”

The Margrave almost choked on the fruit stone. “Oh, Raffi,” it said, when it had got its breath back. “I am so, so happy to have you here.”

THAT NIGHT, IF IT WAS NIGHT, Raffi pushed the sense-lines farther, desperate with worry. It was exhausting, forcing his bruised mind against miles of rock, through tiny fissures, slithering up the cracks in tilted strata. Claustrophobia made him gasp and wheeze; once he had to stop and sit up, shaking. There was nothing but rock, nothing alive, not the merest thread of a root. After hours he had to let himself fall asleep, worn out by the effort.

He dreamed of Sarres. The sunlight was so bright it made him cry out, and the grass was green and freshly cut, the smell of it warm on the breeze. The old house looked quiet, and somewhere Artelan’s Well was bubbling its crystal music, but on the lawn among the grazing geese was a silver staircase, and Flain was walking down it, wearing the Coronet, a glimmer in his black hair. Raffi ran toward him, but when he got there he stopped in amazement, because it wasn’t Flain at all, but Galen, who said to him irritably, “What’s all this nonsense you’ve been listening to, boy?”

“I haven’t. At least . . .”

“Don’t lie to me, Raffi. You can’t hide it from me. I’ve been there before you, remember?” And behind him there they all were, Tallis in a dress of leaves, and the Sekoi standing where Tamar stands in the images, and to Raffi’s delight it carried what must surely be a Sekoi cub, a black furry thing that wriggled and squalled. Behind it was a tall man in dark Watch clothes, and looking at him crossly, Carys, in a coat made of blue sea foam, her red hair grown long. “About time, Raffi,” she snapped. “What have you been doing? You keep your mind on us and don’t forget it.”

She stood back. Behind her he saw Felnia, a little taller now, dressed in heavy crusted gold, sitting on a great throne, far too big for her. She frowned when she saw him, her high voice petulant. “Where have you been? You’re always supposed to be bringing me a present—I never get to see it.” On her lap was the scruffy toy cub. She waved its paw at him. “Say hello to Cub. And hurry up, Raffi. We’re all waiting for you.”

“Yes, but who’s Kest?” He looked around anxiously. “Is it me? Am I the one?” He was asking the toy.

It winked at him, its eyes jewel bright. “You’ll see,” it whispered.