Taste of Lightning (27 page)

‘The Singer believes there are chanters in every corner of Tremaris. She says the power of magic cannot be hidden. It must rise, as the sun rises, as the flame rises in the darkness.'

There was a pause; Penthesi's hoofs clopped on the track, and there was an indistinct thrum of crickets. Tansy whispered, ‘Then how
does
Wanion do her magic, if it ain't real?'

Beeman kept his voice low. ‘Those who believe in her magic give it power. Do you understand?'

‘No.'

Perrin said, ‘I think I do. If you'd stolen Skir's hair for her, she would have told him, threatened to make her magic with it. She'd try to frighten him into obeying her.'

Beeman nodded. ‘Wanion's sorcery gains its power from fear. Take away that fear, and she would be powerless.'

‘Mm,' said Tansy, unconvinced. ‘She's still got the Pit and the shore fires. They're real enough.'

‘But fear of the Pit is even more powerful than the Pit itself. There's no magical power in torture, or in leaving a body to rot as a warning to others. Wanion trades in fear and information. Her spies are everywhere, and she knows everything – Perrin, what makes Rengan strong?'

‘The Army.'

‘Is it? Or is it unity? Rengan is organised around one purpose. Its people share everything they have, to stand behind their Army. That's what makes them strong. Not the Army itself, but the agreement that supports it.'

Perrin thought for a moment, then chuckled. ‘All right. What makes Baltimar strong?'

‘We're rich,' said Tansy.

‘True,' said Beeman. ‘Baltimar has fertile land, mines, dairy herds, treasuries, granaries stuffed with wheat. But –'

‘It's the people.' Perrin was enjoying himself. ‘It's the opposite of Rengan. Everyone in Baltimar is out for themselves.'

‘They are encouraged to think of themselves,' said Beeman. ‘That is their strength, but also their weakness. Just as Rengan's single purpose is its weakness as well as its strength.'

Perrin laughed. ‘I should have been born in Baltimar, and Tansy should have been born in Rengan. Neither of us really fits the philosophy of our own land.'

Beeman said soberly, ‘And it's those like you, the misfits, in both lands, who provide such a market for the rust-lords. You've had a lucky escape.'

Tansy didn't enjoy this kind of conversation. She said, ‘So what's Cragonlands' strength, then?'

Beeman said, ‘If you asked the rulers of Rengan and Baltimar, they'd agree that Cragonlands has no strength at all. It's been invaded, stripped bare, left with nothing. But it's a curious thing, you know. Poor and suffering and downtrodden as they are, hardly anyone in Cragonlands takes rust.'

‘Maybe it's the Faith makes them strong,' suggested Tansy.

Perrin said, with a touch of bitterness, ‘Strong enough to bend before every wind that blows.'

‘To bend, yes. But not to break.'

There was a pause while Tansy and Perrin digested this. Tansy said, ‘No wonder Skir's got a quick tongue, if you talked like this to him every day.'

Beeman laughed. ‘Not every day.'

Perrin was silent. Everything he knew, he'd taught himself; he'd never had anyone to guide him or encourage him. Maybe if Tugger had lived, he'd have taught Perrin a thing or two. He'd tried, during the mission, but Perrin hadn't wanted to learn. He flushed with shame. He hadn't listened to anything the squad had to teach him. He hadn't even listened properly to the briefings about the raid . . .

Perrin went cold from head to foot. For the first time, he realised that if he had listened, if he had done what he was supposed to do – been in the right place, sung to the dogs sooner – the raid might not have been a disaster. Tugger and the others might have survived. Tugger's death was partly his fault. That was something he'd never admitted to himself before.

He wound his arms tightly round Tansy's waist and laid his cheek against her back. Perrin never cried, but there was a prickling behind his eyelids.

He heard Beeman's quiet voice. ‘Take the left turn at the crossroads, Tansy. We're almost there.'

Skir's feet skidded on the cobbles as he ran downhill into the heart of Gleve. People stared, and he forced himself to slow to a walk. The streets were patched with light from open doors and windows. Skir walked briskly from shadow to shadow, not looking at anyone. His priest's robes were dark enough to pass for any plain clothing. Only the copper circlet on his brow might betray him, so he snatched it off and thrust it in his pocket.

Before long he reached the Old Quarter. The buildings here were crammed together, and the doorways were carved with elaborate, old-fashioned symbols, like the panels of the throne room: swirling clouds, twining rivers. Here and there were ugly holes where houses had been blasted away in the fighting, raw gaps like knocked-out teeth. Wild cats slunk through the ruins.

Two thoroughfares sliced through the Old Quarter: the Market Road, and the North Gate Road. Even at this hour, they were alive with food-stalls and music and spilled light. Skir headed for the noise of North Gate Road; he hunched himself inside his outer robe, and shielded his face with its folds. There might be people in the streets who would recognise him, as Diz and Lora had.

The North Gate Road wound uphill until it broadened into Sether Square, the winter square. In the bitterest winters, before the war, they'd sluice the paving stones with water so that children could slide on the ice. In summer, it was the home of flower-sellers. The White Pavilion formed the eastern side of the Square. Skir stood still while people jostled around him and soldiers barked orders. One gestured fiercely at Skir. ‘Come on, son! What's wrong? Got no home to go to?'

Skir allowed himself a brief, wry grin; nothing had ever seemed more true. He walked, casually, to the gates of the White Pavilion. A smaller door was cut into the larger one, just high enough to duck through. Aware of the absurdity of his action, but somehow convinced it would work, Skir raised his fist and knocked.

Tarvan no longer existed. Tansy and Perrin rode Penthesi up the hill to the scattering of small houses, white and grey and silver in the moonlight. It looked like any other village, but the houses were as empty as broken eggshells, smashed and hollow, open to the sky. The black mountains stared impassively down.

‘We're here.' Beeman nodded to the remains of a little temple at the end of the village. Its whitewashed walls were stained and crumbling, the roof was gone, and the whole interior was blackened and burned. Charred skeletons of courtyard trees thrust up above the broken walls.

Perrin and Tansy slipped from Penthesi's back. ‘Where is it?'

‘The cellar is intact,' said Beeman.

Wary, as if any footfall could set off an explosion, they picked their way to the ruined temple. It was cold in the hills, and Tansy shivered in her thin shirt.

At the temple steps, Perrin said, ‘You stay here.'

Tansy shook her head; her teeth chattered. ‘I got s-steady hands, remember?'

Beeman draped his cloak over Tansy's shoulders. ‘Not too steady just now. Stay with Penthesi.'

‘He'll wait here.' Tansy walked up the steps and into the blackened courtyard. Dead embers crunched beneath her feet. And – she looked quickly away – pieces of bone gleamed pale in the moons' light. ‘Which way?'

Beeman nodded to the back of the courtyard. They passed under an archway and along a narrow passage, littered with debris. Stone steps led down to the cellar, disappearing into pitch darkness.

Perrin said, ‘I don't suppose anyone brought a candle?'

‘I always carry a candle stub.' Beeman patted his pockets, then plunged his hands into them and felt around. At last he cursed softly. ‘Every day but today.'

Tansy let Beeman's cloak fall at the top of the steps. The blackness yawned in front of her, the breath of cold stone. She swallowed. ‘Come on then. We'll have to feel our way.'

The little door swung open and a grizzled gatekeeper scowled out at Skir. ‘Deliveries is round the back, in the lane.'

With relief, Skir heard the accent of Cragonlands in the gruff voice, not the drawl of Baltimar.

‘It's not a delivery. I've come from the Temple.' He let the gatekeeper see his priestly robes. It was only then that he realised he had no weapon; but that was right, as it should be.

‘Temple business? This time of night?'

‘It is business connected with our visitors.' Skir stared at him hard, and the gatekeeper glanced over his shoulder and shuddered.

‘She's a character, that Lady Wanion.' He licked his lips nervously.

Skir's heart jumped.
She
was here – here already. But he kept his voice even. ‘Lady Wanion?'

The gatekeeper's scowl deepened; he knew he had said too much. ‘I weren't told about any Temple business.' He tried to shut the door, but Skir wedged his foot in the crack. They stared at each other. ‘Get out!' hissed the gatekeeper. ‘Or I'll call the soldiers.'

Skir fixed him with a steely gaze. ‘You have a priest of the Temple arrested here and there'll be trouble. These visitors are here under strictest secrecy. I don't know why you weren't told I was coming tonight. But if you call the soldiers, there'll be no secret left to keep, and the blame will fall on you.'

‘I weren't told. I can't –' The gatekeeper wavered.

‘
Let me in
,' said Skir. And, as if hypnotised, the gatekeeper stood aside.

Skir stepped into a large lobby, elaborately tiled and dimly lit. A pattern of golden stars and moons glittered high overhead. It was very quiet. Skir turned to the gatekeeper. ‘Get back to your post. I'll find my own way.'

The man nodded uncertainly and melted away into the gloom. Without hesitation, Skir strode through the lobby and into a wide corridor with huge rooms opening off it. His soft leather boots were soundless on the tiles.

Skir ascended a massive marble staircase. Another long corridor stretched the length of the wing. This part of the Pavilion was in darkness, except where moonlight leaked through cracks in the shutters. Skir walked on, an urgent shadow. He felt invisible, untouchable.

Since the war, the White Pavilion had mouldered behind its gates, its ballrooms shuttered, its dining halls draped in dust sheets.

At the back of the Pavilion, a glow of lamplight filtered up the next staircase, and the sound of voices. Skir paused, listening. What next? He'd been so intent on getting here that he'd thought no further. Somehow he would stop Bettenwey's plot, that was all he knew . . . And Wanion was here.

He guessed where he was; it was like Arvestel. He'd left the sprawling reception rooms behind; this part of the Pavilion contained the private apartments, the bedrooms and parlours of the noble guests. These rooms would have been opened up and aired for Wanion and the other visitors.

Skir slipped around the corner into the next wing. It was completely dark, with a strong smell of mould and mice. Skir bounded up a wooden staircase, swagged with cobwebs. The corridor here was dark, narrow and wood-panelled. Skir crept along, turned another corner and was back in the main wing, but a floor above the rooms that Wanion and her servants occupied. He felt as if he'd known these dark, neglected spaces in his dreams, as if he were following a map he'd drawn up himself long ago.

Ahead was a gallery, roofed with a dome of dirty glass. Skir moved silently to the edge and looked down onto a large, shabby drawing room.

Almost directly below him stood a square object, heaped with mounds of green silk and bone-coloured velvet. It took Skir a moment to realise that it was a huge litter of ivory, with long handles protruding from each corner, and the mounds of silk and velvet were the enormous reclining body of Lady Wanion herself. She was murmuring, too low for him to hear.

Skir's knuckles whitened on the railing. Crouched close to Wanion was a girl. Her chestnut hair glinted in the candlelight; she was massaging one of Wanion's withered, claw-like hands. Even before she turned her scarred face upward, Skir knew it was Elvie.

He must have made a sound, and Elvie's sharp ears caught it. She turned her blind eyes to where Skir stood in the gallery. He stepped back instantly into the darkness, but it was too late.

Wanion's head tipped back. ‘Guards!' she roared.

Skir sprinted along the wood-panelled corridor. The stairway yawned, but the guards would come up that way. He flung open the nearest door and found himself in a bare room, streaked with moonlight: nowhere to hide. The next room held a single, sagging bed, swathed in cobwebs. He dived beneath it, trying not to sneeze or gasp as the boots of the guards thumped up the stairs and along the corridor. Doors crashed open, boots thudded and squeaked. The handle rattled, then the door smashed open. The boots made straight for the bed, and a spear was thrust swiftly underneath.

Skir wriggled backward, but a hand seized his leg and dragged him out. Two Baltimaran guards held him at arm's-length. Skir was convulsed with sneezes; his feet twitched grotesquely off the floor as if he were a puppet. A third guard marched back to the gallery and called down to Wanion.

‘It's only some dirty little Craggish guttersnipe, mam. Shall we spit him on a spear, or throw him back in the street?'

There was a chance they might have let him go. But Skir had had enough of being disregarded. He was furious: with Elvie for betraying him, with the guards who'd captured him, with Bettenwey for trying to use him. He was angry with Wanion, with Tansy and Perrin, who'd left him to stew in his room alone. He was even angry with Beeman, who was not here when he needed him most. Most of all he was angry with himself for being caught. He struggled furiously. ‘I am the Priest-King of Cragonlands!' he yelled. ‘I am Eskirenwey, heir to the Circle of Attar!'

There was silence. Then Wanion's voice boomed from below. ‘Bring him to me.'