The Waterless Sea (32 page)

Darrow held up a clenched fist, the hand that bore the ruby ring. He growled out a chantment, and as Tonno and Mica stared, the red stone of the ring wrenched itself free of the gold claws that gripped it, and hung suspended in the air, glowing in the last fiery light of sunset.

For a heartbeat the ring hovered there, between the flat plain and the dome of the sky. Then Darrow flung up his arms toward the looming black silhouette of the Palace, stamped against the emerging stars. The radiant blood-red stone shot up, up, to the roof of the Palace.

Darrow threw back his head, and watched it go. ‘The last pipe,' he whispered. ‘The Pipe of Lyonssar, which is always open. The ring is the only way to seal it, the only way to stop the engine.'

As they watched, the Palace slowed, the black edge grinding through the red dirt, forty, thirty, twenty paces away, sliding slower and slower. And then, at last, it was still. A profound silence filled the Dish of Hathara.

In the midst of the silence, a low growl of chantment from Darrow crept across the desert. For a long moment nothing seemed to happen. Then Mica saw the dark-shining speck of the ruby come spinning out of the night to Darrow' s clenched fist. The tiny golden claws of the ring reached up to grasp the stone, and it settled back in its place, dark and secret as blood.

Darrow said, ‘It is finished.'

The soldiers stood about, uncertain and whispering. The courtiers began to creep back in fascination to the Palace in its new resting-place, close to the edge of the plateau, slightly tilted down the slope. Mica saw that more and more openings had appeared in the walls of the monolith, so that the sheer cliff-face of the cube was pocked and laced with holes, windows and doors and peepholes. A face was staring down from every aperture; one of them was Heben, watching intently, and beside him stood Fenn, one hand on Heben' s shoulder.

For a long frozen moment it was like a picture in a tapestry; the chanters and the rebels gazed down, and the soldiers and the courtiers gazed up, trying to read each others' faces.

Night had fallen suddenly as it always did in Merithuros. The three moons shone brightly, flooding the scene with silver light. The huge black cube of the Palace loomed at the edge of the escarpment; all around it lay the destroyed walls and gardens of the plateau, the smashed remains of military equipment, abandoned helmets and scraps of banners. A great crowd of soldiers and courtiers were massed at the base of the plateau. Catapults and courtly baggage littered the red dirt, and bewildered
hegesi
galloped across the plain. Soldiers stood about in aimless groups, helmets pushed back, hands on their hips. Here and there, someone stood stoically, having his head bandaged, or wincing as a cut was sponged clean. Dishevelled courtiers clutched their embroidered robes close against the evening chill, and picked their way gingerly across the battlefield to stand with their acquaintances. No one knew quite what to do.

Darrow stooped to where Calwyn lay; he sang a swift chantment to free her hands from their manacle of rock, and lifted her in his arms.

‘We must take her inside,' he said.

‘Inside there again?' Mica' s sharp little face grimaced in reluctance.

Darrow said, ‘The Black Palace is not what it was. It never will be again. Inside and outside are not so different now.'

Tonno lifted his boots, squelching, in. . .could it be. . .
mud
?

Mica gave a sudden yelp, and clutched his sleeve. ‘ Tonno! Look!' She pointed down with a shaking hand.

‘By the gods,' muttered Tonno, dazed and blinking. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. It must be one of those chantments of seeming, that made you see what wasn' t there, because this was impossible.

A spring of water was bubbling up from the place where Calwyn' s hands had been. Silent and unstoppable, a clear stream crept out toward the edge of the plateau, then trickled over the escarpment. As Tonno and Mica watched in amazement, the rocks around the mouth of the spring crumbled; Mica leapt back as a sudden roaring rush of water poured out in a silver torrent. She held out her dusty hands to the spray, and eagerly splashed her face. She was a child of the ocean, and she had been missing the sea.

Darrow walked steadily around to the side of the Palace, to the still-open door, carrying Calwyn in his arms. Mica trotted to catch up to him. ‘Darrow, where' d it come from? Look, it' s still spoutin up!'

Darrow turned his head, and a brief smile flickered across his stern face. ‘Perhaps the uprooting of the Palace has freed the spring that fed the wells, like pulling a cork from a bottle. Or it might be Calwyn' s doing.'

‘What is it she' s done, Darrow?'

A shadow crossed his eyes. ‘I don' t know what she has done, Mica.'

A sheet of water spread across the plain, wider and wider, until the plateau where the Palace stood seemed to float on a pewter plate that mirrored back the sheen of the moons' light. Tonno paused to duck his head into the river, and shook his wet curls with a sigh of satisfaction. Mica danced with delight.

‘It ain' t never goin to stop! It' ll be the biggest lake in Tremaris! It' ll fill up the whole of Hathara!'

‘Perhaps it will.' But Darrow was less interested in the lake than he was in taking Calwyn to safety.

The soldiers and courtiers clustered about the sloping walls of the escarpment, and shouted up to the chanters. They were not like Mica and Tonno, relishing the embrace of the water. There was real panic in their voices as they yelled, ‘Let us in, for pity' s sake! We' ll drown out here!'

One of the chanters leaned far out of one of the new windows and called down to Darrow. ‘My Lord! What would you have us do?'

Without breaking his stride, Darrow called, ‘Have them throw their weapons into the water, and the rebels too. Then let them come up.'

Children hung out of the windows and laughed at the sight of the bedraggled courtiers as they stumbled through the deepening water, wet hair tumbling over their shoulders, their fine clothes sodden and heavy with mud. But the courtiers responded to the children' s giggles with good-natured shrugs, rather than insults. The soldiers of the Emperor' s Army were surprisingly nonchalant as they tossed their weapons into the widening lake, and hurried to the shelter of the tilted Palace. The chanters opened gateways in every wall and waved the invaders inside almost as if they had been looking forward to their arrival. And the rebel fighters chuckled as they threw their sheathed knives from the windows far out into the water, turning it into a game.

Mica saw all this, and wondered at it. ‘What' s happened?' she whispered to Darrow. ‘Why ain' t no one fightin?'

He glanced down at her with a strange expression. ‘I think we will have to ask Calwyn that.'

Soberly, Mica looked at Calwyn' s pale face as it rested on Darrow' s shoulder. ‘Will she be all right?'

‘I don' t know,' he said grimly. They had reached the doorway; recognising his authority, the soldiers and courtiers cleared a path for him to pass. Inside the hall, the chanters welcomed him. And there was someone else too. At the sight of the tall, gaunt figure at the back of the crowd, Darrow' s face lit up with joy and relief. ‘Halasaa! Halasaa, my friend! Welcome back to us.'

Calwyn brought me back.

‘But – she said she could not heal you.'

She has healed far more than what ailed me. She has been part of a
powerful chantment. It may be the most powerful magic ever attempted in
Tremaris.
Halasaa stepped forward with his arms outstretched.
I will take her now. Do what you must. Make her work complete.

Darrow hesitated, confused. ‘You mean, she has performed a chantment of healing? A great healing?'

Halasaa nodded, his face both grave and joyful.
She has begun
the healing of a land.

Darrow held Calwyn' s limp body close for a moment before he surrendered her to Halasaa' s arms. ‘Thank you, my friend. Take good care of her.'

Halasaa bowed his head, and bore Calwyn away, vanishing into the shadows. After spending all his life in the treetops, he was more sure-footed than most, for the floors of the Palace were all slightly sloping now. The sorcerers had hastily sung up some chantments to make it easier to walk around, singing some inclines into steps, and roughening the slippery floors to give more grip. The children scrambled about, shouting with wild laughter as they skidded and slid, but the sorcerers found themselves suddenly ridiculous, clutching at the long robes that tripped them up, and sometimes tumbling down altogether.

Tonno chuckled, and said in a low voice, ‘Won' t do them any harm to look foolish for once in their lives.'

Darrow gave him a brief, distracted smile, then said abruptly, ‘I must go. There is much to be done.'

Tonno gave him a bow that was only half in mockery. ‘Be off with you then, my lord.'

As he watched his old friend hurry away, instantly surrounded by a murmuring crowd of chanters seeking instructions, he said thoughtfully to Mica, ‘I reckon this life might suit him. Lord of the Black Palace. If he throws his dice right, he might find himself ruler of Merithuros yet.'

‘What' ll he be, if there ain' t no more Emperors?' Mica frowned. It was a serious matter to be a friend of an almost-Emperor.

Tonno clapped her on the shoulder. ‘We' d best go after Halasaa, see if there' s anything we can do for Calwyn.'

But they were only partway down the corridor when they were halted by a cry of ‘Wait!' and saw Heben loping after them. ‘If you please, Darrow wants us to go to the roof,' he panted. ‘We' re to find the two who opened the pipes, and bring them down.'

It took the searchers a long time to find them. The moons had wheeled through half their nightly journey, and the bells for midnight had chimed, before Mica heard a faint noise from within one of the star-seers' huts.

‘Over here!' she yelled, and Tonno and Heben came running.

Keela was crouched inside, her pink silk dress stained with dust, her hair a ruined tangle. She lifted her wide ice-blue eyes arrogantly to the silent group at the door of the hut.

‘It wasn' t me,' she declared at once. ‘I didn' t have
anything
to do with it. It was
him
.' She pointed to where Oron huddled, nearly invisible, in a corner. He lifted a sullen face to them.

Heben gripped Keela' s arm. ‘Dog!' she exclaimed. ‘How dare you touch a Princess of the Royal House!'

Wordlessly Heben hauled her to her feet, and when she spat in his eye, he wiped it away without flinching.

‘How' d you know what to do?' demanded Mica. ‘How' d you know how to start it?'

Keela indicated Oron with the merest twitch of her hand. ‘He heard your master talking.'

‘Our master?' Mica' s forehead crinkled. ‘Oh, you mean Darrow!'

‘
She
told me to spy on them!' blurted Oron. ‘
She
made me unblock the pipes! I didn' t know what was going to happen!'

‘Enough!' said Tonno sternly. ‘Save your stories for Darrow.' All the soldiers, all the courtiers, had come inside. There had never been so much noise and bustle in the silent corridors of the Black Palace.

Through the night Darrow was the calm centre in a storm of activity. With Fenn by his side, and the Council of Three, and the commander of the Army, he directed the distribution of bedding and food and other necessities. But when they brought Keela and Oron before him, he waved everyone else aside.

‘We found em on the roof,' said Mica eagerly.

‘She made me do it,' repeated Oron sullenly, staring at his feet. ‘She said she' d kill me if I didn' t do what she wanted.'

‘Surely you won' t take the word of a dirty, lying little boy over that of the Third Princess of the Empire!' exclaimed Keela with a toss of her head.

At that Darrow raised an eyebrow. ‘It may have escaped your notice, my lady, but there is no Empire any more. Perhaps that means there are no Princesses, either.'

Keela' s eyes narrowed. ‘You speak treason,' she said haughtily. ‘There will always be an Empire. And I will
always
be a Princess.' As she spoke, her gaze swept about the room, searching for familiar faces. Suddenly, imperiously, she called out, ‘Immel!'

A tall man on the other side of the room turned to look at her, but his face registered nothing. There were other courtiers in the room, but though they had been her followers at Court, they also avoided her gaze, as if they were embarrassed. One or two even shuffled from the room. Keela stared after them, momentarily nonplussed. Then she drew herself upright, and curled her lip with as much arrogance as before.

Mica put in, ‘Her name' s Keela. She was friends with Calwyn when we was at the Palace of Cobwebs.'

Keela patted the ruin of her hair. ‘I only befriended her because Amagis begged me. Such a dull little thing!' She glanced at Darrow flirtatiously from beneath her long lashes, but he stared back at her, unmoved.

‘Tell me why you set off the engine.'

‘Well, I was so frightened when I saw all those soldiers! I do
hate
fighting!' Keela smoothed her skirts with a coy smile, a gesture that belonged to another time. She realised it, and stopped. ‘I thought if they saw the machine move, then everyone would stop
attacking
one another – I wanted to stop people being
hurt
!'

‘She' s lying!' Oron burst out. ‘She wanted to find a way to rule the sorcerers, and to show the Army how powerful she was! She made me follow Calwyn, and spy on you! She made me tell her about the engine, and how to set it going!'

‘So we made it go.' Keela shrugged. ‘But he couldn' t make it stop.' She gave Oron a scornful look. ‘I was only trying to
help
,' she wheedled, her head on one side.

Darrow said drily, ‘I think not.'