The Hidden Coronet (15 page)

“
Galen!”
he screamed, sending the mind-call out, but the moths smothered that too; there were so many of them, their tiny malevolent minds hissing with the instinct to bite and suck. He beat feebly now, writhing, curling up on the floor knowing only the great mass clustering all over him; he was a blackness of moths, more and more of them till his mind darkened and his choked breath stopped, pulling him down a warm tunnel where he could sleep, deep in the weight of wings.

“Raffi!”

The yell was in his head.

Light broke over him, sense-lines like whips of pain that made his whole body convulse and jerk and cough. He was hauled up roughly, yanked upright, bitten and sore, retching.

All around him the air swirled. Moths filled it like dark snow, fluttering, in his eyes and hair, resettling even as Galen dragged him to the smashed door. His face and neck stung, he felt sick and giddy; but as he heaved himself out, the cold wind shocked his mind into clearness.

Galen stumbled after him, a drift of moths crisping from his clothes.

They ran down the steps and crumpled into the snow.

Raffi spat out fragments of wings, coughed them up, shuddering with cold and shock.

“Dear God!” the keeper raged. He staggered up, black hair blown in his eyes by the wind. He looked wild and furious; Raffi grabbed his coat.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking of. Don’t.”

Power cracked down his arm, sharp blue sparks of it.

“I should burn it,” Galen snarled. “As it ought to be burned! Not leave it like this, defiled, a nest of Kesthorrors.”

“And bring every Watchman in the town down on us!”

Galen clenched his fists. “I could burn the whole town, Raffi! All of it!” He glanced down and it was the Crow that Raffi saw, a black restless shadow enveloping them both, charging the wind with energy.

“I know,” Raffi breathed. “I know you could. But it would be wrong. We don’t want vengeance, Galen.”

Galen closed his eyes and wrapped the coat tightly around himself. “Sometimes,” he said, his voice hoarse and bitter, “sometimes we do, Raffi. More than anything.”

IT WAS DARK when they got back to the inn, the wind roaring now, gusting them against walls. Galen was limping and they were both in pain from the bites of the moths, even though Raffi had tried rubbing melted snow on to cool the irritation. With nightfall the town was deserted, all doors and windows barred against the rising storm, but to their surprise the inn room was full.

Some sort of urgent discussion was going on. Many of the people looked like refugees, newly arrived. As Galen and Raffi pushed their way in, they found themselves at the back of a crowd, the heat of the room stifling after the chill air. A great fire burned in the hearth, and a stout man on a stool next to it was talking into an attentive silence. Raffi slammed the door, forcing back the wind. A cold draft roared the flames; a few people turned and looked at him.

Galen moved quickly to the staircase opposite, but Solon reached up from a small table by the window and caught his arm smoothly.

“Thank God,” he whispered. “Where have you been?”

“Busy,” Galen growled. “Where’s Marco?

“Gone to look for you. I think you should listen to this.”

“I’m not . . .”

“Please, Galen. It’s not good.”

“The filthy Order,” the man by the fire announced crisply, “have got to be responsible.”

Galen turned instantly.

“You’ve no proof of that,” a woman said bitterly.

“What other explanation is there! The weather’s gone mad. You’ve all seen that. Now the Watch, have they got the power to do something like this? Do they have the knowledge?”

The crowd murmured. Someone waved for more ale; the woman, Emmy, brought out a fresh jug.

“Who is he?” Galen snarled.

“Some troublemaker. Keep calm. It’s just Watch propaganda.”

But Galen wasn’t calm. Raffi knew that.

“I think we should go upstairs,” he said, pulling Solon’s sleeve urgently.

“Be quiet,” Galen snapped. “I want to hear this.”

“The Order are sorcerers.” The stout man spat into the fire. “And believe me, there are still plenty of them, despite the talk. They have all manner of secret hideouts. And spies everywhere.”

Raffi swallowed, his throat dry. The wind screamed against the shutters.

“They’ve put a spell on the weather. In revenge, there’s no doubt. They want to terrorize us all into fearing them. The Order always ruled by fear, we all know that . . .”

“
No!”
Suddenly Galen’s pent-up anger exploded. He pushed Solon back and shoved through the crowd. “No! The Order ruled by love!”

“Love!” the stout man scoffed. “It was lies, all of it! Flain and the Makers! What did they make? The world? The world grew, friend, like a seed.”

Solon was on his feet. “He’s an agitator,” he muttered. “The Watch use them to provoke rebels.”

“We’ve got to get Galen away!” Raffi was desperate.

“You don’t know . . . You don’t understand . . .”

“The Makers lived!” Galen roared, lashing a chair aside. “And only the Order kept the world from chaos!”

Power was almost visible around him, the flames of the fire leaping up. People backed off; one man opened the door and slipped out. The stout man looked alarmed. He got up from his stool and pulled a knife.

“Who are you?”

Outside, the wind shrieked. A shutter flew open with a crash that made Raffi jump in terror. The stout man stepped back, the stool smacking over.

“You’re from the Order,” he breathed.

Galen smiled his bitter smile.

“No!” Raffi shoved forward. “Listen!” he yelled. “Everyone! Listen to the wind! It’s not just a gale. It’s like a vortex!”

As if to answer him, a blast shattered the door wide. Straw swirled, the fire flattened and roared. All the windows burst inward in an explosion of glass and wood, and Raffi felt himself flung against Galen, grabbing the keeper’s shoulder, feeling the sparks of energy as they crashed against the tables. Women screamed. Pots and dishes flew.

“It
is
a vortex,” Galen whispered.

16

Lands will shake, the stars fall.
The moons will plummet.
Water and fire will engage in battle.

Apocalypse of Tamar

T
HE VORTEX MUST HAVE STRUCK the town full on. Deep in the dim cellar, huddled among casks and barrels, Raffi suffered its fury, the terrible wind shrieking like nothing he had ever imagined, the pain of it cutting through his mind like a knife, no matter how close he hugged his arms around his head.

They were well below ground, and yet even here the crashing of walls and buildings came to them as the storm smashed whole houses and streets. Dust showered down, but the roaring terror had long drowned all talk. Some children whimpered. A girl slept, exhausted. In the dull light of two snatched oil lamps, Raffi glimpsed all their shadowy faces; dirty, tired people huddled in corners, who had managed to scramble down here when the inn roof had finally been torn clean away.

The stout man lay against one wall, holding a bloody rag to his head. They seemed to have been here forever. The noise was unbelievable; Raffi was sure nothing would be left standing. Closing his eyes he remembered briefly the smothering moths, the broken dome. That would have all gone. Galen’s fierce urge to destroy it had been fulfilled.

Turning his head, Raffi glanced over at the keeper. For him the pain must be a worse agony, screaming along the raw sense-lines, but Galen sat still, his back against the damp bricks, his gaze steady and absorbed. As usual in times of crisis he could go deep into meditation, his soul far off. For a moment Raffi let himself wonder if Galen’s rage had caused the vortex. Then he shook his head. That was stupid.

Solon sat next to him, his head pillowed on a sack. The Archkeeper looked gray and wan. He managed a smile. “Can’t last much longer,” he whispered.

An enormous crash shook the walls. A woman gasped.

“Flain help us,” someone breathed.

Suddenly bricks and stone came thumping down, a slither and thunder that made Raffi flatten himself in terror, and sent a vast cloud of choking black mortar through the cellar. For a moment he was sure the ceiling was coming in. A lamp toppled and smashed, spilling oil. Solon covered his filthy hair with his arm. “Tamar guard us,” he kept muttering. “Soren protect us.”

Slowly, the rubble slid to a stop.

The new, tilted darkness tasted of grit; Raffi spat it out, his whole body tense. This was terror; he breathed it in with the dust. It stifled his thoughts like the moths; that terror of the roof coming down, the crushing weight of the rubble above.

He curled tight, trying to think of anything else. Where was Marco? Dead, almost certainly. He imagined him, bleeding under some smashed wall. And Carys, and the Sekoi? Had the storm struck them?

He wouldn’t think about that.

And then he realized he was listening to silence.

Utter silence.

Heads raised. Solon’s prayers faded. Someone said, “It’s stopped.”

The silence was a great peace, a lifted weight. They could even hear the faintest plip of water dripping.

“Thank God,” Solon whispered.

Raffi went to stand, but Galen’s hand reached out and caught him like a vise. “It hasn’t finished,” he said, and his voice was harsh, filling the stifling space. “The center of the storm is passing over. We’re only halfway through.”

The ale-wife, Emmy, came crawling through the rubble. She was filthy, her long hair dragged out of its pins. She looked appalled. “Are you sure?”

“Certain.” Galen looked at her. “Keep the children close to the walls.”

They waited. The stout man mopped his wound. “If not the Order’s work, keeper,” he said stubbornly, “then whose? The Makers?”

Galen eyed him. “The decay of it.”

“So what can save us?”

“Faith.”

“In the Makers? They’re long gone.”

“Are they?” Galen glanced at him sidelong. “But you were right about some things. The Order are not finished. The Order will save you, despite yourselves. So will the Crow.”

As he said the word, the storm crashed back, an explosion of noise. Raffi groaned, covering his head. He lay there and endured it, knowing it was worse, louder, unbearable because a woman’s crying was mixed up in it and from some dark despair he raised his head and saw Galen had an arm around Emmy and she was sobbing endlessly, her sons clinging to her. Time ended; only the storm’s scream lived. Once Raffi thought the battering rage had lessened and he almost slept, in sheer exhaustion, and another time he wandered into delirium and knew, instantly and surely, that the Margrave was behind him, a grinning dark horror at his shoulder, as he screeched out and jerked around. But there was only Solon, looking old and somehow shriveled, rubbing at a tiny mark on his hands, over and over.

Raffi reached out and held his fingers gently.

The Archkeeper looked up abruptly. “The cells were like this,” he breathed, his voice choked.

An icy chill touched Raffi’s mind. For a moment he saw a pit of horror; clutching the old man’s fingers, he said, “This is not the cells. You’re with us now.”

Solon closed his eyes. When he opened them something had passed. He patted Raffi’s arm and managed a smile, weary and kind.

And then, infinitely later, hours later, Raffi must really have slept, because when he opened his eyes and hissed with the ache of his stiff arms, the vortex had passed, and gray daylight filled all the chinks and cracks of the cellar.

PEOPLE WERE MOVING. Galen gently eased Emmy aside and scrambled up, dust streaming from his clothes and hair. Another man joined him.

“The stairs are blocked.”

Galen nodded.

In the corner lay a great mass of rubble. The upstairs must have totally collapsed, Raffi thought in despair, but Galen had already clambered up and was tugging carefully at it. After a while he said, “I think we can get through, but it will take time.”

He pried a stone out and handed it down.

They made a chain of workers, even the stout man joining in desperately as the glimmer of daylight above Galen’s head widened, and Emmy tapped one of the casks into an old beaker, handing it around so everyone could drink. It was thirsty work, and dangerous. Twice stones fell in on them. By the time Galen could squeeze out of the gap Raffi’s face was smudged black and his hands were sore and cut.

The keeper climbed up and disappeared. They heard the slither of rubble. When he looked back in his face was grim.

They lifted the children out first, then the others. When it was Raffi’s turn to crawl up into the chill gray morning he shivered, staring around in disbelief. The town was gone. In its place lay a landscape of ruins, walls barely shoulder high, stairs that led nowhere.

People were picking over the desolation aimlessly. In places plumes of smoke rose up. Alleys and streets were lost under mounds of stone and plaster.