The Hidden Coronet (9 page)

“Without you we couldn’t have done it,” Tallis said. She swung the plait of hair over her shoulder and picked up the notes. Raffi could see they were untidy, with words crossed out and altered in Carys’s regular Watchscript.

“Fragments of this you’ve heard before. This is the rest, as far as we could make out. It seems to have been recorded in a time of great crisis for the Makers.”

She pushed an escaped lock of hair behind her ear, and began to read:

“
Things are desperate; it may be that we will have to withdraw. There’s been no word from Earth for months and we don’t know how the Factions stand. Worst of all, we’re sure now about Kest. Against all orders, he’s tampered with the genetic material. Somehow he’s made a hybrid. He never told us, but Soren guessed.

“The creature is hideous. Flain fears it has a disturbed nature, certainly a greatly enhanced lifespan. When it was let out of the chamber it destroyed all the lights and most of the test area. It seems to dislike light. Then it stood in the dark and spoke to Flain, taunting him. It is very intelligent.

“We have flung it deep in the Pits of Maar. Kest called it the Margrave. I hope it will die, but in my heart I keep thinking we should have destroyed it. We should have made sure.”

Tallis stopped.

Solon had made a small gasp, an indrawing of breath. When they looked at him, his face was white with terror. Sudden cold tingled down Raffi’s spine.

Galen leaned over. “Archkeeper? Are you ill?”

He shook his head, his fingers vaguely rubbing over each other, as if he were washing his hands. “No. That name.”

“The Margrave. You’ve heard it?”

“I have. In the cells.”

He seemed frozen with dread. Raffi shivered too. A ripple of horror swept across the room like a snowstorm. All the sense-lines swirled, and for a moment Raffi saw again the darkness of his dream-vision; the dark room he had once seen, the edge of a misshapen face, long as a jackal’s, turning toward him in the firelight. Then Galen said, “Raffi!” in an anxious snarl.

He opened his eyes.

Everyone seemed unsettled.

“No. My fault.” Solon rubbed his forehead with the heels of his hands. “I must be more tired than I thought. Might I also have some ale, Guardian?”

Carys fetched it, thinking grimly that if even a word could unnerve them, it was no wonder the Order had crumbled so fast. Raffi came behind her and drank a deep draft from the cold water jug. His hands were clammy with sweat.

“All right?” she said.

“All right.” He wiped his mouth.

“You remembered about the Margrave, didn’t you? That time you saw it.”

“I didn’t see it. Not properly.”

She nodded. He was taut and unwilling to talk. Together they carried the jug and cups back to the table.

Turning a page, Tallis read on:

“Kest’s creatures swarm everywhere, multiplying and mutating. The geological patterns are uneven and yet the weather-net holds. When we withdraw we’ll have to leave the Coronet active as a stabilizer, even if neural access is not possible. It should hold off the disintegration of the weather-net for decades, maybe centuries. Until we come back. Also, it may provide an emergency portal. Flain says . . . ”

She stopped and looked up.

“Flain says?” Galen asked anxiously.

“I’m afraid that’s all, keeper. Nothing else would come.”

In the quiet the Sekoi picked up the jug and poured ale into the small wooden cups. Felnia came and looked around the door.

“I’m getting hungry. Haven’t you finished YET?”

“Soon,” Galen growled. “Keep him out there.”

“Don’t shout at me!” They heard her shooing the geese out of her way.

“They were in trouble,” Carys said. “There were few of them, and Kest’s interference had disrupted their creation of the world. They were in danger. So they left.”

“Leaving us the Margrave,” Raffi muttered.

“And Flain’s Coronet,” Galen said.

They all looked at him. His eyes were dark, his face tense with energy.

“Yes!” Solon nodded. “I had noticed that too.”

“Is it a precious thing, this Coronet?” the Sekoi asked casually.

Tallis shrugged. “It’s rarely mentioned in the sacred books. No one has ever thought it anything important. In images, Flain is sometimes shown as wearing a thin gold crown. As there.”

The Sekoi’s yellow eyes turned with interest to the window. Flain wore his dark robe of stars, and now they noticed on his hair a delicate filament of gold, smooth and without decoration. It was easy to miss, Carys thought.

“But it is important, obviously, and it’s what we need.” Galen stood up and walked across the room. “We must find it. All winter I’ve worried over this; we can’t deal with the Margrave with the world crumbling around us. This may be the thing that will keep the Finished Lands safe . . .”

“But they’re not safe,” Raffi muttered. “They’re shrinking.”

“Exactly!” Galen turned on him, dark hair swinging out of its knot of string. “And this relic might stop that! We have to find out where it is!”

“And the Margrave?” Carys asked.

“Can’t know about that. The Margrave is the secret power behind the Watch. If they knew, then the Watch would be looking for the Coronet. Unless . . .” He sat down suddenly. “Unless this is what the Watch are really seeking, when they confiscate relics.”

They thought for a moment. Then the Sekoi said, “And how do we even know where to look?”

“We ask.” Galen turned to Tallis, the air around him almost crackling with his conviction. “We use Artelan’s Well. One of us drinks the water, and this time”—he glared at Raffi—“there’ll be no mistakes.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice said wryly from the door, “but have you people finished your service? It’s just that the little one and I could eat skeats.”

Galen straightened and stared at him. “You.”

Marco stared back. Then he looked ruefully at Solon.

“Thanks, Your Holiness. I see you’ve told our hosts all about me.”

10

Let the keeper beware men’s cold voices.

The water and the wood
Speak no empty phrases.

Litany of the Makers

R
AFFI STOOD ON THE HILL, the sky above him a clear, warm blue. He could see the small red moon, Pyra, the youngest of the sisters and his favorite, very pale in the sunlight. Looking up at her, quite suddenly he remembered one time when he had been small, sitting on his mother’s lap, hearing the story of Pyra and the wolf, while his brothers and sisters ran and argued around him. When could that have been? His mother had always been too busy to pay much attention to him. How were they all? he wondered. It had been a long time since he had thought about home, though it had always been there, a place to go back to in the corner of his mind. He knew it had been dirty, noisy, full of arguments; he’d always been in the way, under people’s feet, a dreamer. He probably wouldn’t like it if he went back, he thought sadly, looking out. In a way, Sarres was home now.

All the green island lay beneath him, its orchards barely breaking into blossom, its lanes and hedges, where already the white snowcaps and muskwort were out, and banks of yellow crocus sprouted from the rich soil. In Sarres spring came early, the ground ripe with Maker-power, and all over it, in the hush when the breeze dropped, you could hear the endless, invisible trickle of Artelan’s Well, the spring of water that ran clear as crystal, that Flain had promised would never dry up.

Raffi let his mind slide deep in the energy lines of the island, sending small sense-filaments into branch and root, into worms and birds and water, feeling the green, fresh restlessness, the small pains of awakening.

A sound brought him out abruptly; the soft whirr and thwack of a crossbow bolt. He opened his eyes, sense-lines swirling, then ran, slipping in haste down the steep, wet grass. Halfway down the sound came again, closer, but in complete silence. No one called or yelled.

He slowed, sweating, letting the panic go. Stupid. There were no Watch on Sarres.

Or rather, just the one.

Ducking under the trees he came through the small iron gate onto the lawns and saw Carys. She had set up a circle of wood on a rickety open ladder and was aiming at it, standing well back. As he watched, her finger tightened on the trigger; from here he could see her one eye close, feel the strain of concentration swell inside her like a bright bubble. Then it burst, instantly, and the bolt thumped into the wood.

Carys bent and picked another out of the grass. She looked over.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She slotted the bolt in. “Stupid question. You can see.”

“Yes, but I mean why?”

“To keep my hand in.” She tucked the smooth hair behind one ear. “And to be ready for when we go.”

“We’re not going till after the Feast,” he said, his heart cold. “And Carys, you can’t come!”

She grinned at him. “Oh can’t I?”

“Your picture was on that death-list!”

To his surprise she just laughed. “Of course it was! Don’t worry, Raffi. I can cut my hair and change its color. They taught us all about that.”

“You can’t change your face.”

“You’d be surprised how bad people’s memories are. I’ll take my chance.” She wound the bolt back rapidly.

He wandered over, knowing it was useless to argue. “You’d be safe here.”

“I’m coming. If Galen’s going after this Coronet, then so am I.” She aimed deliberately. Watching, he felt the weight of the bow in his mind; then he opened his third eye and from the target saw the bolt explode into his chest with a wooden thump.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why weren’t we on that list? Galen and me?”

“They don’t have drawings of you.”

“Braylwin would have described us. They could have made some sort of picture.”

She looked at him, thinking. “There are lots of lists. Still, you’re right. It’s odd.”

A mere-duck flew over, its red tail flashing. She whipped up the bow, following it down among the trees.

“Don’t,” he muttered, nervous.

Carys looked at him irritably. “It’s not loaded.”

“I’m very glad of that!” Marco was walking through the trees. In the last few days his wounds had almost healed; looking at him now Raffi saw a stocky, broad-shouldered man in the too-tight red jerkin Tallis had found for him. Red of face too, a bold, blunt, cheery face. He sat himself down next to them.

“Now, I’d love to know why a scholar of the Order needs to practice with a crossbow. Maybe if I wasn’t a hated relic-dealer, and in Galen’s opinion lower than the muck on his boot, I’d ask.”

Raffi frowned. Carys laughed. Lowering the bow she kneeled on the grass. “I’m not a scholar. I’m ex-Watch. A bit like you, I suppose.”

“Ex-Watch!” Marco looked curious. “I didn’t think they allowed any ‘ex.’”

She shrugged.

After a silence he said, “My friend Solon tells me we’ll only be here three more days. Until after the Feast of the Field of Gold. Whatever that is.”

Raffi looked appalled. “You don’t know?”

Marco lay back on one elbow, ankles crossed. “Should I?” he teased.

“It’s Flain’s return. From the Underworld. From the dead.”

“Oh.” Marco winked at Carys. “I see. From the
dead
!”

Raffi felt himself going red. The man was making fun of him. And the Makers. It made him angry. “It’s important,” he muttered fiercely. “It’s the first day of spring.”

“I’m sure it is. Where would we be without the Makers.”

Raffi scrambled up.

“Wait. I’m sorry.” Marco sat upright, his grin suddenly gone. “Really, Raffi. I shouldn’t poke fun at you. Not after you all but took my head out of the noose. It’s just . . .” He shook his head in irritation. “How an intelligent man like Solon can believe all that nonsense . . .”

“Is it though?” Carys said thoughtfully. “How would you explain the world, Marco? Relics—you must have handled a lot of those. And Sarres?”

He pulled a mock painful face and rubbed an eyebrow; he had thick eyebrows, as if his hair had been dark, and across his knuckles the word ROSE tattooed in blue. “I’m a plain man, Carys. How should I know. There were Makers—there probably were—but I think they were people just like us. Well, cleverer. Where they came from, I don’t know, but I don’t believe they came down from the stars on stairs of silver! They knew things we don’t; the relics were things they made. Over the centuries the Order built up these fancy stories about them and forgot all the important bits. And why not? It gave them plenty of power. Men like Solon would have been respected. Before the Watch.”

She glanced over at Raffi. He looked hot and confused.

“And the power the keepers have? It exists. I’ve seen it.”

“So have I!” Marco laughed. “Oh, I can’t explain that. The ice-cracking was incredible, but when Galen got those trees to close in around us—that would have made my hair stand on end if I still had any!”

They laughed with him, Raffi uncomfortably.

“It comes from the Makers, I suppose. It still doesn’t make them gods.”

“They weren’t gods,” Raffi muttered. “They were the sons of God.”