Dark Heart (12 page)

While she considered this, the conversation had moved on. Captain Duon had resumed his telling.

‘I spent a month in Andratan, waiting for an audience with the Undying Man. Many people there confirmed the widespread belief that he was ancient, preserved by magic, but when I finally met him he seemed perfectly ordinary. I explained who I was and whom I represented. The Undying Man seemed interested, and invited me to return in due course with a retinue of unspecified size. He issued an invitation to the Emperor to journey to Andratan and share wine with him. I thanked him and left.’

Another moment of shared silence. This time the buzzing was a little louder.

‘Sorry, er…sorry,’ the girl’s brother said to Lenares. ‘We haven’t been introduced. My sister Arathé just asked your…ah, master? Brother?’

‘Captain Duon,’ Lenares said impatiently. ‘I am Cosmographer Lenares.’

The captain translated this for her.

‘Ah. I am Anomer, and this man is my father, Noetos the Fisher. Beside him sits Bregor, the Hegeoman of Fossa village. Using mind-speech, Arathé asked your Captain Duon how long he spent in the dungeons of Andratan, and he replied that he hadn’t known the fortress had any dungeons. My sister told him that he must live in a benign country if fortresses there do not have dungeons below them.’

Captain Duon smiled weakly.

‘I met the Emperor in the dungeons under the Talamaq Palace,’ Lenares said, her voice loud in the sudden silence. She realised a moment too late that this would make Captain Duon look foolish. ‘He let me go, though, when I told him about the hole in the world.’

The captain did not translate her words, and the four strangers looked at her blankly.

Of course; they know nothing of our language and they do not have numbers to help them understand.
She laughed self-consciously, wishing she could deflect their stares.

‘What did she say?’ the red-haired man, Noetos, asked Captain Duon.

‘Oh, nothing of importance,’ he replied. His reply angered Lenares. What made him think she was of no importance?

Arathé told them she had been a prisoner in the dungeons of Andratan two years ago. ‘The same time as Captain Duon awaited his audience, most likely,’ her brother said. ‘That cannot be a coincidence,’ he added unnecessarily.

‘So, is this something all the gifted share?’ Noetos said. ‘Or was it implanted during your visit to Andratan?’

‘I am gifted,’ Lenares said before she could help herself, but again the strangers did not understand her.

‘I don’t share it,’ Anomer said.

‘Yet I’ve heard your voice in my mind,’ said his father.

Anomer frowned. ‘As far as we can tell, that is through Arathé’s gift. My thoughts travel through her to you. Perhaps it depends to an extent on my own magical ability, but without Arathé I cannot go beyond the confines of my own head.’

‘You hear voices also?’ Captain Duon asked Noetos.

‘Only my son and daughter, and only when they choose to include me,’ he said, the merest trace of asperity in his voice.

‘Voices?’ Anomer said to the captain. ‘You hear voices other than my sister?’

As fascinated as Lenares was by the idea of hearing voices in one’s head, she had questions of her own that could wait no longer.

‘Ask her why her family shines so brightly,’ she said to Captain Duon. She recalled one of Mahudia’s many sayings. ‘Don’t ignore me like I am a bedpost. Ask them my question.’

‘But, Lenares…very well.’

He turned to their bemused hosts and asked her question. Their attention shifted to her.

‘Shines? What do you mean?’

She saw the look on the father’s face; the same look so many others had given her in the past. Halfwit, his face said to her, much more loudly than his audible words. So she wasted no time, and laid out what the numbers had told her.

‘You hold back a great secret,’ she said, pointing at Noetos. ‘But it is not a secret any more. Your son knows it, though your daughter does not. Others know it too. You want to tell them, even though you think they will hate you forever because of it.’

The family stared at her, then at Captain Duon, waiting for the translation. The captain seemed uncomfortable.

‘Translate for me, Captain,’ Lenares demanded. ‘I will know if you change my words.’

Duon scowled at her, but did as she bade him.

‘What is this?’ Noetos growled. He turned to Anomer. ‘What have you been telling these people?’

The boy looked upset. ‘Father, nothing would make me reveal your secrets. They are not mine to tell. I haven’t even spoken of them to Arathé yet.’

His sister grabbed him by the arm. ‘Wahh seeyits?’ She glanced from her brother to her father and back again, then focused on Lenares.

Lenares smiled.
I am special too.

Captain Duon sighed. ‘Lenares is a cosmographer. Her mentor said she is the best we’ve had in a thousand years. She can read the patterns all around us; converts them into numbers, or some such thing. That she sees something special about you and your family is clear. Would you be able to guess at what she means by a “shining”? Then we can return to the important questions.’

‘This may be important,’ Anomer said. ‘All this may be very important indeed.’

He turned and favoured Lenares with a wide smile. His eyes were sparkly like Mahudia’s used to get.
This boy doesn’t pity me. He thinks I am special.
She smiled shyly in return.

The shining Lenares saw might be the water magic of Bhrudwo, the children of Noetos explained. They both had it, and because of this Andratan had been interested in them. Lenares did not think their idea was correct, but she listened politely. Arathé had been sold—Lenares wasn’t sure this was the right word—to the Undying Man, but had discovered that much of the magic was put to evil use in his service. Using it hurt those near the user. So she tried to leave Andratan, but the cruel magicians there would not let her go. Instead they cut out her tongue and put her to work in the dungeons, drawing on her for power. It wasn’t until she was taken south, to be used as a drudge by Recruiters on their way to search for more magically gifted children, that she had been reunited with her family. Her father was very angry at how she had been treated, and wanted to go to Andratan and ask why.

Lenares nodded. ‘I’ve never seen people’s numbers shining like yours do. You both look very beautiful.’

The siblings smiled at her.

Captain Duon turned to Lenares and his face wore its own frown. ‘I’ve just realised something. How can you know the local language? Did you learn it from someone in Talamaq? Is that why you were sent with the expedition?’

‘Patterns and numbers,’ she replied. ‘Just as good as magic. Maybe better; I still have a tongue.’ Again she could have bitten hers off, but Arathé laughed.

The talk continued, hour after hour of it, and Lenares was enthralled with it all.

Captain Duon wondered aloud whether anyone else who had been in Andratan two years ago had been infected with voices. Arathé thought that maybe everyone who went there received the ability. No one else thought this likely. There was apparently another voice, a nasty, horrible voice, which both Captain Duon and Arathé could hear. They seemed very worried about this voice. The two of them talked for some time about how they might fool the voice, but came to no conclusion that Lenares could follow.

Eventually, however, she allowed their earnest voices to fade a little. She had her own thinking to do. Did any of this connect to the hole in the world? What was her next move? Would Dryman allow her the freedom she needed to pursue and somehow defeat the hole? And why did she have a vague feeling that she had it all wrong?

And behind these thoughts, a rosy pink glow that kept her warm.

Duon sat apart from the others, making himself comfortable on a small rocky knoll above the main campsite. Below him bonfires flickered, with only the occasional silhouette momentarily visible in front of the flames. The former residents of Raceme had settled down to sleep.

The night was cold, but dread chilled him more effectively than the cool breeze ever could. Arathé and he had speculated on the identity and nature of the cynical voice in his…in
their
heads. Anomer, however, had the most frightening insights; perhaps, Duon speculated, only half in jest, because the boy’s head was not so crowded.

‘You have Andratan in common,’ Anomer said to them. ‘At the very least someone has done something to you there that has made you receptive to this voice; at worst one of you is carrying someone else in their head, and the other can hear it. Or you may both be carrying someone.’

Arathé had become upset at the thought that another being might be lodged within her. ‘It’s like being with child after a rape, if the child could hold conversations with its mother,’ she had said. ‘I don’t want it.’

‘There is only one person who can wield magic sufficient to do this,’ Anomer had continued. ‘And that is the Undying Man himself.’

Noetos had growled at the words, a bear ready to strike. Duon had revised his earlier estimation of the man: though he did not look much like a warrior, he might prove difficult to best in combat. There was something of the
vledmehar
about him, those legendary warriors of the icy south who foamed at the mouth when they fought. Given what Noetos’s daughter had suffered in the Undying Man’s fortress, Duon supposed the man’s anger was justified.

Arathé had sighed at her brother’s words, as if he’d confirmed something she had suspected but not been willing to confront. ‘I never saw the Undying Man, except once from afar when I first arrived.’

‘Does he need to be near someone he ensorcels?’

Duon listened carefully. He could not ascribe their fear and horror of the Undying Man to the very human figure he had met. That said, he had met the Emperor of Elamaq and had not felt the power that, with a word, had assembled an army thirty thousand strong only a few days later.

‘But why?’ Duon had asked the youngsters. ‘Why us? What does he hope to achieve? I don’t understand. Is this anonymous magician spending his days listening to our thoughts? We are not important people…are we?’

These were the questions he wrestled with now, as the fires died down and the cold settled on him like a second skin. The fear that had his heart in its grip was this: did unimportant Captain Duon now have two emperors competing for his obedience? One to the south, who would destroy him and his family should he believe Duon responsible for the loss of the expedition. And one to the north, who might well be listening to his baffled musings even now.

Was that laughter he could hear? A faint, repetitive sound, like derisive laughter in the back of his head?

No, it was the slap of boot on stone; someone was leaving the camp.

Duon raised his head. He’d had half an eye on the path below him, wondering when Dryman and Torve would return from whatever nocturnal wandering they were engaged in. This was a solitary figure, a much bigger man than either of Duon’s fellow southerners. It took only a flash of red hair in the wan moonlight for Duon to recognise him.

Where was Noetos going?

Duon was not inclined to pry into the private affairs of others. However, he had learned a number of things concerning the Fossan family that connected them to him. And there was something about the way the man walked, a furtiveness, as though he was trying to disguise his bulk, that made Duon get to his feet and follow quietly after the northerner.

The man left the narrow path soon after, and made his way surefootedly across three fields to the main highway they had all walked along earlier in the day. Duon tried to keep in the shadows, guessing that the man would be angry at being followed. He nearly turned back, but he was fed up with mysteries. Besides, the man would not be going very far.

For the next three hours Duon followed Noetos, alternating between deciding to give up his pursuit and becoming increasingly convinced the fellow was about to do something he wanted no one else to know about. The pace the man set was extraordinarily swift, and Duon, though hardened by months of walking in the southern desert lands—added to years of exploration—found it difficult to keep pace. After a while, however, it didn’t matter. It was obvious where the man was heading.

They arrived at Shambles Hill just as the moon went down. Below them the city of Raceme was nothing but a shadow pricked by torchlights. The man halted briefly, then pressed on, more cautiously. It was basic soldiery to assume the Neherians had patrols out beyond the walls; belatedly Duon considered the danger he might now be in. Having the northern man angry at him was not the worst thing that could happen.

They approached the city wall.
The fool means to get inside the city,
Duon told himself.

Yes, and you’ve known it for an hour or more,
said the cynical voice.
Stay out of the city. Don’t throw your life away when you don’t know what is happening.

Duon listened carefully to the voice, as Arathé had suggested they ought, and thought he detected an underlying current of worry.

Am I that valuable to the voice?

He found himself strongly tempted to ignore its advice.

A hand gripped his arm and pulled him into an alcove in the wall. ‘Nice night for a stroll,’ Noetos growled in his ear. ‘But a little dangerous to be taking the midnight air under the eyes of the enemy, don’t you think?’

For a moment Duon could barely draw breath past the sudden constriction of his throat. A hot retort, built from anger and fear, formed in his mind.

The cynical voice spoke.
This man is a hothead. You will impress him by remaining calm.

Duon could see the sense of this. ‘Welcome back to Raceme, friend Noetos,’ he whispered. ‘Did you miss it as much as I?’

The bulky shadow drew back a pace, his hand still on Duon’s arm. ‘You’re a cool one,’ he said. ‘Why did you follow me?’

‘Curiosity,’ Duon replied promptly. ‘I wondered what would bring you here, and thought you might want some help.’ He brushed the man’s hand away.