The Margrave

25

I am so changed, you would not know me.

Sorrows of Kest

HE LOOKED OLDER. Different, as if he had passed through some great ordeal. It made her realize how long it had been since she had seen him.

“Raffi?” she said.

“Hello, Carys.” His voice was quiet; he made no move forward.

Galen turned on the Margrave in wrath. “What have you done to him!”

The creature on the throne smiled. Carys stared at it in uncontrolled curiosity, its bright eyes that took them all in, their dismay, their hesitation. The ripple of its scaly skin fascinated and repelled her, its musky smell in the dimness, and when it spoke, its voice, a whisper of clicks and rustles.

“I have done nothing to him. But your rescue attempt is ill-conceived, Relic Master. He is my scholar now.”

The sly way it said Relic Master filled Carys with unreasoning anger. She raised the bow and pointed it at the creature. “Come on, Raffi. Now!” To her dismay he came from behind the throne and stood between her and the Margrave; she swerved the bow away with a curse.

“Don’t, Carys, please. You don’t understand.”

“Too right, I don’t.” She glared at him. “What’s happened to you?”

“I haven’t betrayed you,” he said quietly.

“It looks that way to me.”

“We can’t kill it.” He turned to Galen, his face pale. “If we do, we destroy ourselves.”

The keeper’s face was dark. “How?”

Raffi looked back; the Margrave shrugged, so he said, with an effort to control his voice, “There are machines here, vast relics; the Makers used them to control the Finished Lands. They can reverse what’s happening to the world, if we can link with them. For that we need the Coronet. But only the Margrave knows how to operate them.”

“And you believe it?” Galen stepped toward him; then he put his hands out and caught Raffi’s arms roughly. “Dear God, boy, after all I’ve taught you, you believe it?”

Raffi nodded bleakly. “Yes. I do.”

Galen was silent. Unexpectedly he said, “Then I must too.” He looked hard at Raffi. “You look well. They haven’t ill-treated you?”

“The opposite.”

“It calls you its scholar.”

Raffi shrugged, uneasy. “That’s nothing.” Then he said abruptly, “I thought you wouldn’t . . .”

“No.” Galen’s sharp sense-lines made him look up. “Don’t say that! You must have known we would never desert you. I would never desert you. I’m a reckless, bitter, angry man, Raffi, and I will never forgive myself for the things I said to you. I drive myself and everyone else hard, but you I’ve driven hardest, always, and I know it.”

“It’s not that.” Raffi’s voice was so low, only the keeper heard it. “Not the way we live. It’s just . . . I thought you despised me. I let you down.”

Galen’s eyes were dark. “No, I let you down. And our lack of trust in each other has brought us both to this.” He pulled Raffi close.

In the charged silence the Margrave’s whisper was cool and amused. “Don’t be taken in, Raffi. He will never change.”

Carys took a step sideways. “Keep him there, Galen.”

Galen flung his hand out at her. “Keep still, Carys.”

“Indeed you must. Because my scholar is right.” The creature’s bright eyes watched them all in the dimness, from Quist to the silent figure of the Sekoi just inside the doorway. “You see, the machines have been mine so many years. I have learned much about them—they are not like other relics. There are code words and combinations even you, Relic Master, could not access for months. I have altered them too, put something of my consciousness in them. If I die, they will die with me.” It folded its ridged fingers. “So you need me. And what I want from you is the relic known as the Coronet. Then, perhaps, I will give the boy back to you.”

“He is not yours to give.”

Galen glanced at the Sekoi. The creature was rigid with hatred, its fur swollen. It said thickly, “Do not listen to its lies, keeper!”

The Margrave stood. Its tongue flickered as it said, “The Sekoi will never believe me anything but evil.”

“I have just come through your handiwork.”

Carys had never seen the Sekoi so moved. It was haggard and worn, its long fingers trembling with suppressed wrath on the relic-weapon it had snatched up. “Out there, I have destroyed all your filthy mutations.”

The Margrave blinked its heavy eyelids. “I can easily breed more,” it hissed.

For a second they both faced each other, an instant when anything might happen, until Galen put Raffi aside and said heavily, “I should kill you anyway, master of evil.”

“If you feel you must, go ahead.” The Margrave turned calmly and walked to its throne, the long robe slithering behind it. “I have no guards, no Watchmen. I have always been alone here. You may kill me if you wish, but all the world will die with me. Besides . . .” It leaned forward, interested. “Your Order forbids you to kill. And I am an intelligent being, am I not? Or am I an animal, or am I some new thing? Where is the boundary drawn? Do I have a soul? Would your act be murder, or the culling of some dangerous species? I will enjoy discussing these things with my scholar when you’ve gone.”

“All I know is that you’re a poison in the heart of this planet.” Galen’s voice was harsh. “It seeps out from you like . . .”

“Not so!” The Margrave pointed a taloned finger at him. For the first time it trembled with anger. “I have not poisoned the world. Your beloved Makers did that! Those god-like beings you so revere, Flain and Tamar, all of them, they did it! They corrupted a whole ecology and could not stop it. They ruined Anara! Ask the cat creatures. They’ve always known.”

Raffi glanced at the Sekoi. Its yellow eyes caught his, expressionless.

Galen stood dark and tall. “They made mistakes.”

“Believe it, Relic Master! They blamed Kest, but none of them were innocent, not Soren with the crops she bred, not Tamar with his cloned beasts. And when it all became too much, when the planet seethed and boiled with disease and alien microbes, they abandoned it when they might have saved it. And you!” It glanced at Raffi. “And me.”

In the silence, somewhere above, the vast machines hummed. Carys felt the thrum vibrate inside her. She wanted to scream at it to stop.

It was Quist who said, “You?”

“Yes, Watchman.” It smiled a bitter smile. “I too am a victim. Left to survive, half blind, never knowing a friend. Do you wonder I made the Watch for myself as a great toy to amuse me, that I brought my stories to life, brought the planet under my hand, that I hated the Order because it revered the Makers and all the things of the Makers?” Its eyes never left Raffi as it whispered, “They killed Kest. They made him fight the dragon, but there was no dragon that they had not made themselves.”

Galen turned away, the agony of his indecision stabbing them all.

Carys couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “The Watch is yours. The Watch killed my family and enslaved me. I should kill you just for that.”

“Ah, but how you profited.” It looked at her shrewdly. “You would just have been some other farm girl, illiterate, overworked, bewildered by superstition. Now you are so much more. The Watch gave you a new life.”

She drew her breath in to scream at it, but Galen turned. His face was set. “No, Carys. I’ll do this. I have sworn it.”

The Margrave sat back on its throne. “What an irony. Your vow will destroy all the world.”

Galen raised his hand.

“It’s telling the truth,” Raffi whispered in horror.

“Get out of the way.”

“Galen.”

“I have sworn to the Makers, Raffi!”

“IT WILL BE WRONG!”

Desperate, Galen shoved him aside, sparks crackling from his fingers. The Margrave smiled mirthlessly. “Do it, keeper,” it hissed. “Do it. I welcome it.”

Galen swung around and flung a great bolt of power out of his very soul. The energy scorched; it jerked Raffi back, shot across the dim chamber, searched in a great arc around the Margrave’s throne. But it did not touch the creature. And it snapped instantly into nothing.

In the long, drained silence that followed, the Margrave stood. “Well,” it said, its voice a dry rasp. “You are true to yourself. I respect that. I will wait for the Coronet. Come, Raffi.”

Galen stood, utterly silent. And in that instant the cavern trembled. The noise of the machines changed; rose to a high whine.

“What’s happening?” Quist looked around.

“The machines.” The Margrave pushed past them, ignoring all weapons; it raced up the stairs. They followed; halfway up Galen found the creature protecting its eyes from the blazing lights. “Put them out,” it whispered.

Raffi said, “It’s all right.” He looked at Galen. The keeper gave a shrug; instantly the lights died.

“My thanks.” The Margrave hastened up into blackness. “The power is fluctuating. This happens often now. Soon there will be none left.”

THE HUGE CHAMBER with the Maker-machines was open and the noise was deafening. Red lights flickered. The Margrave turned. “These are what I control, keeper.”

Galen stared at the relics, appalled, then moved his mind rapidly through the complex systems. He shook his head. “It’s failing.”

The noise was unbearable. Raffi grabbed him and pulled him outside. “The Coronet! We can make the link with Tallis from here . . .”

Galen dragged back his hair. “I can’t do it alone. Not even the Crow—”

“The Makers can.”

Galen looked at him in despair. “The Makers aren’t here.”

“Yes they are.”

They stared at Raffi in shock. The Margrave came up behind, looking suddenly intrigued. Raffi caught hold of it and pulled it toward them, and grabbed Carys with his other hand. He felt wild and reckless with sudden certainty. “The Makers are here,” he yelled. “The Makers have never left!”