The Sekoi made a spiteful, spitting noise.
“Right. Talk.” Alberic leaned back. “But any hint of a spell and that bolt flies.”
Uneasy, the creature looked sidelong at Galen. Then it spread its seven-fingered hands. “You have no reason to trust us, thief-lord, I know that. I think the keeper is wrong to tell you this, because how do we know that you won’t kill us when you learn it, and take the gold anyway?”
Alberic’s shrewd face creased into smiles. He swirled the wine in his cup. “Go on.”
Galen went and leaned beside Braylwin, half in shadow. The Sekoi’s eyes followed him. “The keeper leaves me in a dangerous place.”
“Never trust a reckless man,” the dwarf said, drinking.
“I’m beginning to believe you’re right.” It stroked its tribemark warily. “Well, I will tell this plainly. You will have heard, of course, of the Great Hoard . . .”
Alberic was listening now.
“No one but the Sekoi know its purpose. But it is vast, and all our lives we add to it. Last year a tribe near here had all their gold loaded on wagons—ten of them, piled high—and they sent it . . . where we send it. They had to pass through this forest. Normally, we can evade the Watch. However, this time it seems there was some problem.”
“Problem?” Alberic said sweetly.
“They were ambushed. All were killed. The Watch took the gold and have kept it inside the house. Among it were some relics, made of precious metals, which are what the keeper wants.”
“The boy went into a Watchhouse for a few relics?”
The Sekoi looked uncomfortable. It bent forward and said quietly, “These people are fanatics, my lord.”
“So I’ve heard.” Alberic folded his hands. “All this is so interesting! Isn’t it interesting, Godric?”
“Thrilling,” the big man said, his bow never flinching.
“Ten wagons of gold! Worth doing a lot for. Worth attacking for. More than a small attack, though, wouldn’t you say?” He glanced slyly at Galen, who watched darkly. “More like a small war, that would be. People get killed in such attacks. Children. I never liked children.”
Galen glanced at the Sekoi, who shrugged. Alberic wheezed a sudden laugh. “Oh, don’t get too worried, keeper. You don’t think I believe this farrago of nonsense, do you?” He leaned back, stretching out his boots and gazing at them critically. “Not for one second. Cramps your style a bit, creature, doesn’t it, my lad’s crossbow?”
The Sekoi smiled sourly.
Suddenly Galen stalked forward. Pushing the creature aside, he stood in front of Alberic, tall and grim. “Will you attack?” he asked harshly.
“No.”
Galen nodded. Ignoring the bow, he tugged the awen-beads off and spread them on the sandy floor; seven rings, overlapping.
“What are you doing?” Alberic said suspiciously.
Galen didn’t answer. Instead he stood behind the circles and raised his hands. At once, the cave seemed darker. Talk stopped. The fire cowered down before him.
“Stop it!” Alberic snapped. “Sit down.”
Galen began to speak. His words were quiet, intense; Maker-words that no one else knew. Around him, in the dark, sudden blue sense-lines uncoiled and crackled. His face was dangerous, edged with anger.
Alberic stood up. “Kill him,” he said.
The bow in Godric’s hands burst instantly into flame. He threw it down with a yell.
No one moved.
Galen looked up and pointed at the dwarf. “Hear me,” he said, the darkness rustling around him, his voice shaking with effort. “In the name of the Makers, I curse you, thief-lord. I curse you up and down, from side to side, from front to back. I curse you from fingertip to fingertip, head to toe. I curse you today and yesterday and tomorrow. I curse all you eat, all you drink, all you speak, all you dream.”
White-faced, the dwarf stared up at him. The cave was black, crackling with power. The fire went out, and still Galen snarled the words remorselessly, his finger pointed, sparks leaping about it.
“May your possessions be dust to you. May your body tremble and rot. May your hair turn white and fall . . .”
“No.” Alberic stepped back, holding up his hands. “No! Wait!”
“. . . May all your friends betray you. May water, fire, earth, and air become your foes. May the horrors of Kest worm into you.”
“Galen!” The dwarf seemed to crumple abruptly, his hands trembling. “Stop it! Not that I believe . . . You can’t do this . . .”
Light crackled from the keeper’s hand. It roared into the spaces of the cave; blue stinging snaps of light around the tiny man, crawling over his limbs, around his neck, so that he yelled and squirmed and beat them off.
“From this instant you will begin to sicken. Pain will fill you. Your food will choke you. Six weeks of suffering I lay on you, and when you die your soul will scream for eternity in the Pit.”
“Enough!” It was a shriek; it broke from Alberic’s twisted mouth like a pain, and he held his hands over his head as if the malice of the words battered him. “Enough. No more!”
There was silence.
The cave was black and smoky, as if something smoldered.
Galen waited. Slowly he lowered his hand.
Trembling, Alberic clawed his way back to the stool and leaned on it in utter silence, everyone’s eyes on him. He tried to drink a sip of wine, but the cup shook too violently in his hand.
When he looked up, his face glistened with sweat.
“I don’t believe,” he breathed, “that even you would wish that on me, keeper.”
Galen didn’t answer.
“But . . . having considered your story . . .” He swallowed painfully. “Having thought about it . . .”
“Will you attack?” Galen asked, grim.
Alberic looked at him, furious, white-faced, his hands still shaking.
“Yes,” he spat.
21
In the unlikely event that all training fails, the agent must use whatever strategies are left.
Rule of the Watch
INSTANTLY A BELL BEGAN TO CLANG, hard and insistent, appallingly loud. Doors banged open; someone shouted.
Carys cursed bitterly; she grabbed the little girl’s arm and twisted it up behind her back with a savage jerk. “One more sound and I’ll break it!” she hissed.
White-faced, the girl stared up at her, pain forcing tears into her eyes. Raffi looked around in terror. “Come on!” he said.
They ran down the corridor, through the lamp-shadows. Turning the corner, they saw two men; Carys pushed the girl aside, raised her bow, and fired. One man collapsed, clutching his arm; the other fired back, the bolt embedding in the lintel over Raffi’s head. Rolling, Raffi gathered up all his energy and flung it in a flaring explosion down the corridor. There was a bang, and a crackle of light. When the smoke cleared he saw both men were down.
“Brilliant!” Carys hauled the child up and jammed a new bolt in the bow. Raffi ran down to the men and knelt by them anxiously.
“Are they dead?” she asked.
He looked up sharply. “Of course not!”
“Then come on!” As she tugged her away, the little girl stared back. “What did he do? What was that?”
“That was the Order at work.” Carys laughed sourly. “You’d better forget all that stuff they taught you about illusions. These people know a few tricks.”
They ran up the stairs, around a corner, then crouched, breathing hard. Far off the Watchhouse was astir—voices were yelling orders.
“How long?” Raffi said.
“They’ll check the dormitories. They probably already know she’s missing.” Wrathfully Carys glared down. “Why couldn’t you have kept quiet! And why didn’t you tell me about this dream, Raffi?”
He frowned. “I didn’t realize she would . . . It was more like a vision. Anyway, it means she really is the Interrex.”
“The what?” the girl asked.
“
Nothing.”
Silent, the child surveyed them, especially Raffi. “In my dream,” she said, remembering, “you were in the classroom.”
He crouched beside her. “That’s twice you’ve gotten me into trouble.”
Her quick face grinned. “Yes. I’m good at that.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Carys said.
“They’ll never let you out.” Calmly the girl pulled the night-cub out and smoothed its head. “You’ll be killed. I won’t care.”
Chilled, Raffi reached out and held her thin wrist. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She looked surprised. “Felnia. What’s yours?”
“Raffi.” He turned the insignia on her neck. The number was 914.
They were silent a moment. Impatient, Carys shuffled down to peer around the stairs. “It’s late. I knew that fuse was—” Before she’d finished, a vast explosion deafened them, shaking the walls; then another, far off in the depths. “Now!” Carys breathed. Slipping out, she raced ahead, checking every corner, Raffi pulling the little girl hurriedly after. Halfway around the next bend a small, cold hand slipped into his. He held it tight.
But there were too many patrols, too many people. Twice they were nearly caught; at last they stumbled into an empty classroom as a group of tall women stalked by, banging open every door and looking in.
Crouched under a desk, Raffi waited for the footsteps to fade. “What now?” he whispered.
Carys pushed back her hair. “The front gate is impossible. We won’t even get near it.” She scowled. “Mind you, I never thought we would.”
“Is there any other way out?”
“Not from here.”
“So what do we do?”
“Withdraw. Somewhere we can defend ourselves.” She turned to Felnia. “The north tower. What do they use that for?”
The girl stuck her tongue out. Carys shrugged. “We’ll try it. It’s usually staff quarters—they may not think we’ll go there.”
They moved quickly, putting out every lamp they passed. Then Carys stopped, so abruptly that Raffi ran into her. “Listen.”
“What?” But as he said it his sense-lines swirled; he felt it intensely in a shiver of sweat, a black, swollen thing, some grotesque six-footed beast slavering down the corridors.
“The bloodhound.” Carys sounded furious. “We’ve no chance.” She rammed the bolt home and turned to face the dark.
“Not here!” He grabbed her. “Up in this tower. We can wedge the doors. Don’t give up, Carys!”
She looked at him strangely; he pulled her away. Around the next bend was a door they tugged open, but inside there was no way to lock it, so they raced and gasped breathlessly up the wooden stairs, pushing the girl in front of them. Up a high flight was a kitchen, full of barrels and stores. Carys flung down the bow and grabbed the nearest cask. “Push them down!”
They toppled the cask and rolled it to the stairtop and over; it crashed down, splintering with an enormous thud against the door below.
“All of them!”
Barrel after barrel they rolled, Felnia pushing with them, all suddenly helpless with giggles, laughing stupidly, as if it was a game, till the stairwell was jammed with splintered wood and sour wine, the reek of cheeses and dried salted fish.
Below, the door jerked, rammed hard, but the barrels clogged it, kept it closed. Someone yelled furious orders.
Carys stopped laughing, clutching her side. “They’ll get an ax. Come on.”
They burst into the top room. Two beds, the blankets sprawled, a chest, a small table. Nothing else. Raffi ran to the window, tugging it open. Then he stood still. Directly below was the ditch, yawning, rammed with sharp, upright spikes.
All at once, cold hopelessness came over him. He felt sick and tired, as if all the energy had gone out of him with that bolt of light. And he knew what Carys had known since the girl screamed. They were finished. There was no way out.
Carys had jammed the table against the door. Now she sat against the wall, tense, the crossbow aimed.
In the silence he said, “We can’t just wait for them!”
“What else can we do, Raffi?” Wearily she shook her brown hair. “Never get into a one-way trap, old Jellie used to say. He never said there was sometimes no choice.”
Something clanged below.
Felnia stood by the door, the night-cub still under one arm. Looking at them, she sat cross-legged on the floor and said, “You could give yourselves up.”
Carys snorted.
“No.” The girl nodded. “I suppose not.” Her brown eyes fixed on Raffi. “Why did you want me? Where were you taking me?”
“Out of here.” Suddenly he knelt up close to her. “We’re your friends. We came to rescue you. We were taking you to a place, a beautiful place, full of trees and flowers, peaceful, even in winter. The Watch never come there. Everything you want is there, food and clothes and people to look after you and love you. Wouldn’t you like that? Wouldn’t you?”
Expressionless, she stared at him. “No punishments?”
“None.”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at Carys. “Would I like it?”
“Not at first,” Carys said quietly. “But I think you’d come to like it.”
“Have you been there?”
She looked at Raffi. “No. But I believe it would be a good place.”
“But why me? Why not Helis, or Dorca?”
“Because you—” But Raffi stopped warily. Carys had given a quick shake of her head; the little girl saw it.
“I won’t tell,” she said at once.
Raffi felt a sudden surge of bitterness. Somehow it hurt most that the Interrex might die without even knowing who she was. He knew well enough that when the Watch stormed the room, none of them were likely to survive. “Do you remember anything, before you came here?”
The girl looked surprised. “Of course I do. I remember an old woman called Marta. She cried a lot. She gave me Cub.” She frowned. “Was that my mother?”
Raffi sighed. “No.”
“Is my mother in this garden you were talking about?”
He glanced despairingly at Carys. “No. Not your mother.”
The girl nodded. She seemed quite satisfied.
“It’s a pity we won’t be able to go there,” she said.
Raffi rubbed his hair. He was so terrified, he felt like hugging himself tight. “I wish Galen was here.”
“He’d only end up dying with us.” Carys was listening calmly; now he could hear it too, the regular, harsh thwack of the ax on the distant door.
“Couldn’t you lie to them?” he said abruptly. “Take me prisoner. Say—”
“Raffi.” She looked at him in amusement. “In this situation I’d have no chance. They’ll shoot first.”
“You could call down.”
“I could. Then we’ll both be tortured and they’ll know all about Tasceron, and the Crow, and the Interrex, and anything else that’s in your mind.”
He felt foolish.
She looked back at the door. “It’s strange,” she said, “but I always had an idea it would be my own people who would get me.”
“They’re not your people,” he said quietly.
The ax splintered through the wood. Warily Raffi sent a sense-line down to it; he could feel a crowd of Watchmen. At least fifteen. All armed.
But there was something else too. Faintly, beyond them, beyond the walls of the house, he sensed it. Without knowing, he raised his head sharply.
Carys glanced over, alert. “What is it?”
Rippling out, he touched them. Wild people, smelling of the forest. Bright with stolen gold. An army of them.
“Alberic?”
“What?”
“Alberic!” He scrambled to the window. “Look!”
A shower of arrows was slashing over the fences. Men were running; a few fell. Already the drawbridge was smoldering; as he watched, a blast of familiar white fire shot out of the forest again, r
oaring the wood into flame. “That’s the box! What’s he doing?”
Carys gave a yell of joy. “It’s Galen! He’s gotten them to come!”
“But how?”
“Who cares!”
The ax-thumps stopped. Then, furiously, they came again, faster. Raffi wrenched the window open. A sudden wild idea had come to him, as if it had shot out of the forest like an arrow, and he had caught it. He turned to her. “Give me that relic!”
“What?”
“The relic!”
She reached into the pouch and threw it. Raffi tore off the black cloth and saw a small gray console, faintly glowing. Holding it tight, he reached into it, felt the Maker-power there, drew it out in long blue lines, sending them spinning down out of the window, long ropes of power, weaving and twisting them into a net, suspended above the deadly spikes.
Below, the door crashed down.
He grabbed the Interrex and forced her up onto the sill. “Jump! You’ll be all right. Quickly!”
Footsteps came warily up the stairs.
“I’ll be killed!” She looked down at the spikes and grabbed him with both hands.
“You won’t!”
“I will!”
“For Flain’s sake, go!” Carys screamed. “They’re here!”
The door burst open. Instantly she fired. Snatching up the girl, Raffi squeezed himself through the window.
Then he jumped.
The Falls of Keilder
22
From a high place, Soren looked out at the Unfinished Lands. “The winters will be long now,” she murmured.
Book of the Seven Moons
THEY CRASHED INTO THE NET.
It dipped and sank and steadied, the blue lines sparking under his hand. He tried to get up and couldn’t; suddenly he felt utterly spent, clutching the relic tightly in case it fell.
Someone was shouting at him and tugging his hair, then the net plunged again and flung him over. He moaned, opened his eyes, and saw just below a terrifying glimpse of the sharp stakes. Then Carys with her shoulder soaked in blood was hauling at his arm.
“Raffi!” she yelled. “Come on!”