The Waterless Sea

  Courtiers bounded to their feet, the banquet abandoned, trays overturned on the floor. Lords and ladies and servants eagerly pushed toward the platform, ghoulishly craning to see, forgetting that the Emperor was not to be gazed upon.

  ‘Where are the healers? Clear a space, get back! Move away! Take off his collar, take off his gloves! How dare you lay hands on his person! I have as much rank as you –’ The Princes were all shouting orders at once, but no one seemed to be doing anything to help the Emperor.

  Halasaa touched Calwyn’ s sleeve. Quickly they turned and slipped through the chattering, excited crowd toward the wall of the great hall. Unnoticed in the commotion, Halasaa clambered nimbly up the carved wall, inserting his toes into the crannies and ledges of the stone. Encumbered by her gloves and heavy robes, Calwyn could only watch. ‘What can you see?’ she called.

  Halasaa’ s face was as still as one of the carvings he clung to. The man is dead.

  A gap had formed in the centre of the crush. The Princes and Empresses and their attendants had fallen back, leaving a space around the shrunken, tiny body of the Emperor. Halasaa caught one brief glimpse before the gap closed again: the yellow face, already waxy with death; the limp hands, shockingly naked and gloveless, curled on the embroidered robes. And the whisper travelled through the hall, shivering through the courtiers like a breeze rippling across the sands. ‘He is dead . . . The Emperor is dead . . . The Emperor is dead at last!’

  Halasaa leapt lightly from his perch, and he and Calwyn slipped from the hall. No one paid them any attention. Everyone was caught up in the horror and excitement of the moment: after so many years, the unthinkable had happened, and happened in the presence of all the Court. The Emperor was dead. Most of the courtiers had known no other ruler. The Imperial Court, where every moment of every day was governed by ceremony and strict rules of etiquette, was thrown into chaos. No one knew what would happen now. The Emperor was the centre, the focus of every activity of the Court. Without the Emperor, the entire fabric of the Empire might begin to unravel.

  As she and Halasaa set off down the wide, twisting corridor that led from the Midsummer Hall, Calwyn pulled off her gloves and thrust them safely in her belt, then she ran, holding her stiff skirts aside. The corridors were almost empty. A middle-aged official, clumsily pulling on his gloves as he ran, shouted to Calwyn, ‘Have you heard? He’ s dead, the Emperor’ s dead!’ The official halted, puffing for breath, in the middle of the corridor. ‘The First Prince has been plotting this for years! He pushed him off the platform!’

  ‘That’ s not true!’ cried Calwyn. ‘I was there, I saw – The Prince was nowhere near him!’

  ‘Poison then,’ said the official, half to himself. All the normal rules of behaviour were suspended. He was a stout, self-important man who, on an ordinary day, would never have dreamed of speaking to an ungloved woman in a public corridor. But today was not an ordinary day.

  Come. We should hurry. Halasaa was ahead of her, poised to fly around the next corner. Suddenly Calwyn was confused. Was it this passage, or the next, that led to Keela’ s rooms?The foamy white tunnels all looked the same. But Halasaa’ s sense of direction was as unerring as a bird’ s, and without faltering he darted around the next bend, and the next, and then they were in the gallery where they had watched the procession.

  Here. Halasaa’ s quiet speech sounded in her mind.

  ‘Yes,’ breathed Calwyn.

  The chantment was still there. It shimmered in the air; though she couldn’ t hear it, she sensed it all around. Only the press and confusion of the crowd could have prevented her from noticing it earlier. It was as clear as the echo of a bell, as plain as a breath against her skin. Without hesitation, she and Halasaa followed the silent call, until they reached the doorway of Keela’ s private quarters.

  They halted. Calwyn had never been inside Keela’ s apartments; she had only visited the Princess in her official reception rooms. A heavy silken curtain hung in the archway. She glanced at Halasaa.

  His eyes were steady. We must go in.

  There might be servants still inside, packing the Princess’ s possessions, but they had to risk it. The chantment came from somewhere within. Calwyn pushed aside the curtain.

  The room was empty. No screens or cabinets or hangings or cushions or mirrors remained; everything had been removed, by servants as busy as ants, to Keela’ s rooms in the Summer Quarters of the Palace. Before the day was out, the apartments where Calwyn and Heben and the others were staying would be emptied, too. The gentle curves of the walls and ceiling glowed bare and ivory-coloured, the intricate carvings outlined sharply, black and cream and grey-shadowed, without the distraction of coloured tapestries. A long window sent a shaft of dazzling light slicing across the room; with no veil to soften it, the light was as harsh as a knife-blade.

  Calwyn moved toward one of the walls. She and Halasaa had no need to speak. They both knew they were drawing closer with every step.

  Suddenly a brisk voice rang out from deeper within the apartment. ‘You take those stools, Riss, and I’ ll fold these. That’ ll be the last of it –’ Halasaa touched Calwyn’ s sleeve, and nodded to a little doorway. Unusually for the Palace, rather than a draped curtain or a sliding screen, it contained a door. It fell open at Calwyn’ s touch. In an instant they’ d ducked through the archway; both of them had to bend their heads. Calwyn closed the little door behind them.

  They found themselves in a dark place; the only light seeped from under the tiny door. As her eyes adjusted, Calwyn saw that they stood at the foot of a steep flight of stairs. The ceiling was very low; neither of them could stand upright, and the walls curved around them, enclosing them like a clutching hand.

  Up and up, Calwyn and Halasaa climbed in the dark, while the stairway twisted and turned. The steps were irregular, and it was hard work to stumble upward, barking their shins on the edges of the steps.

  After a time, a faint light shone through the walls, as if the stone were a closed eyelid, and they found they could see their way at last. In the grey light, exhausted, they climbed on, heads bent beneath the stone roof. In silence, Calwyn briefly reached out a hand behind her, and in silence, Halasaa grasped it, then let it go. Still the chantment vibrated all around them, stronger all the time.

  Presently the stairs narrowed; Calwyn was crouched almost double. Halasaa spoke into her mind. I can go no further.

  ‘Wait for me here,’ whispered Calwyn. Though she spoke softly, her voice seemed loud after the long silence in which they’ d climbed, with no sound but their stumbling feet, and the quiet panting of their breath. Calwyn went on alone.

  At the very top of the grey-lit stairs stood another tiny door, twin to the one below, but even smaller. It reached only as high as Calwyn’ s waist; Halasaa could never have fitted through it. Calwyn was a tall woman, but she was slender. She would just be able to squeeze through.

  She thought that the door might be locked, but as she reached out her hand, it swung open. She bent down, and crawled through the doorway.

  The sun’ s glare hit her like a hammer. She was on the roof of the topmost tower of the Palace of Cobwebs, the high thin spire she’ d seen on the first day, the spire that had seemed to pierce the sky like a needle. Beyond the frothing white and cream of the Palace, the vast red desert spread on every side; the blank, blue sky stretched from one horizon to the other.

  The space of the roof was barely three paces square. A shallow wall ran around the edge, as low as Calwyn’ s knee. The sun burned on the patch of roof, bright white; there was a thin line of shadow along one of the ramparts. And in that shadow lay a child.

  DARROW 3

  Heron sped on, skimming over the waves of the Outer Sea. The night before, Darrow had passed the western coast of Baltimar, and seen the shore fires burning. Now only open ocean stood between him and the Empire of Merithuros. Once he had sworn never to return there. But now two things drew him back, as the moons drew the tides. One of them was a tall girl w
ith a dark plait down her back. The other was in his pocket. He sat with one hand on the tiller while the other fingered the ruby ring, turning it, and turning it, until his fingertips were raw. And even then, he couldn’ t let it go.

  Passing the Testing has changed something of the pattern of the boy’ s daily life. He no longer eats and sleeps with the younger children, but lives in a different part of the Palace, on the western side, which is hotter during the afternoons. He is aware, even now, three years later, that his reprieve was a mistake, that his safety was purchased with false coin. He expects at every moment to be found out for a coward and a cheat. He has learned what happens to the children who fail the Testing: sufficient in skill but deficient in obedience, they are sent away, to the north, to the Palace of Cobwebs, to be sacrificed. The handful of girls who arrive at the Black Palace are always deemed to be too wilful; they are, without exception, sent away. The children are the price the sorcerers pay for their solitude. A bargain has been struck; in return for the children, the sorcerers may remain in the safety of Hathara, to pursue their magic and guard their secret craft.

  The boy has begun to comprehend the brotherhood of the sorcerers and what binds them. He sees their fear of the world outside, their absorption in their traditions, their reverence for the ancient scholarship they guard. And he, too, derives a fierce delight from the exercise of his gift. One of the oldest of the sorcerers tells him, ‘Out there – that is not freedom. Freedom is here, within these walls. Eh? Do you understand me, boy?’ And he does understand.

  The boy does not know exactly what happens after the failed children reach the Palace of Cobwebs, or the manner of their sacrifice. He prays that he will never find out, for it is not unknown for a rebellious adolescent to be banished, long after he might have thought that theTesting had bought him safety forever. But a limit is observed. After the boys’ voices drop and they are considered men, they are no longer sent to the Palace of Cobwebs.

  The boy longs for the sorcerers to assign him a room of his own and a set of black robes, for that is the mark of manhood, the guarantee of safety. The black robes mark his entry into the covenant of the sorcerers. After that, he can bully the children himself, preside over their lessons, and learn the most secret lore of the adult chanters. The boy loathes the sorcerers as much as ever, yet he longs to be of their company, and these conflicting emotions tear at him daily as he walks the dim corridors.

  In the boy’ s twelfth year, he is told he will learn the movements of the stars and moons and their meanings. For a year, he will join the astronomers on the rooftop every night, and sleep during the day.

  To his surprise, he enjoys the lessons in astronomy. The star-seers are scholarly men, sunk in the deep mysteries and speculations of their study, detached from the petty intrigues that flow through the rest of the Black Palace. They rarely practise chantment, regarding themselves as astronomers first and ironcrafters second. The boy even finds himself liking several of them, who speak to him kindly and draw him into their work. And it is a great joy to see the stars again, and the moons, and to feel the breath of the night air on his face. For the first time since he’ s come to the Palace, he feels some measure of contentment.

  It is because he is with the star-seers on the rooftop that he sees Samis arrive. The roof of the Palace is more complex than he had ever imagined, crowded and muddled in a way that would never be tolerated below. It is crammed with ramshackle structures, boxes of equipment and odd protruding lengths of pipe and chimney, necessary for the provision of air and heat within the Palace. There is one particular long, thin pipe, played by the desert winds, that whistles with an eerie high-pitched wail, night and day. There are wild eagle nests up there too, and the birds gaze balefully at the sorcerers, believing that the roof belongs to them.

  Every night he and the star-seers – they are seventeen in number, always with one or two pupils among them – pick their way across to the bare patch of roof in the south-western corner where they make their observations. The wall that runs around the edge of the roof is low here, barely waist-high, and when he is not required by the star-seers, the boy leans his elbows on the wall and stares across the sands, and up at the sky. Silently then he repeats the names that the sailors of Gold Arrow gave the constellations, imposing them over the names the Merithurans teach him, keeping alive something of the little boy called Mouse.

  He is leaning on the wall one night when he catches sight of a moving dot, far off on the flat plain. He watches it with curiosity, because it seems to advance deliberately toward the Palace, which a hegesu would not do. Then he sees with a shock that it is a man, travelling on foot, and walking with great purpose directly to the plateau where the Palace stands.

  The boy lets out an exclamation, and soon the wall is crowded with the star-seers, leaning over the edge and remarking on the marvel in their gentle voices. There are no visitors to the Palace. No one knows where it is except the sorcerers themselves, and it lies so deep in the wilderness of Hathara that it could never be discovered by chance. They are too high up to see the traveller’ s face. But they watch him come to the foot of the doorless, windowless monolith, and stand staring up at it. Then he moves around to the other side, out of sight.

  ‘Come, my brothers,’ chides the most senior of the star-seers. ‘There is no profit in this idle talk. Let us work. It will be dawn soon.’

  And so they return to their observations, but they are alight with curiosity.

  The next night, one of their number has news of the strange visitor. He is no ordinary traveller, but a prince of the Imperial Court. And he has come to the Black Palace of his own volition, to learn chantment.

  The astronomers buzz with wonderment. Not one of them has come here of his own will; every one of them was stolen or thrown out from his Clan, every one of them knows himself to be an outcast and a pariah. Yet this man – this prince! – has chosen to exile himself here, he has chosen this life. It is an astonishing event.

  Living his back-to-front life, the boy has no opportunity to see the stranger. Occasionally one of the star-seers picks up a piece of gossip and relays it to his fellows. The visitor is imperious, demanding particular foods and comforts in his lodging-room. The visitor is gifted: he sang his own way into the Palace without help or guidance from anyone. Without being taught, he knows many of the tricks of ironcraft, and some that the masters did not know. The visitor is dangerous; he discovered the location of the Palace from the sorcerers’ representative at Court, the so-called Hatharan Ambassador. There are whispers that the Hatharan Ambassador is dead. A hasty embassy is dispatched. The whole of the Black Palace has been turned upside down by the presence of this stranger.

  Despite the threat he poses, the visitor remains. Is it possible that the sorcerers are afraid of him? The embassy to the Imperial Court returns. The Ambassador was not dead, after all. The visitor has been seen laughing. Who is this man, that the sorcerers are so cowed by him? He goes everywhere, he pokes his nose into everything.

  One night, the visitor decides to poke his nose into the business of the astronomers. He ascends the ladder and steps onto the roof. It is the first time the boy has set eyes on him since the night of his arrival, when he was a tiny figure swathed in dusty robes. The star-seers fall back in a dismayed flutter of black crows round a bird of paradise.

  The prince dresses as though he were still at court, in embroidered gloves, bejewelled shoes, a short brocade cloak that stands out stiffly from his shoulders like the ruff of a lizard.Yet the boy’ s eye is drawn at once to the stranger’ s large head, to his face. The prince’ s face, in contrast to his foppish attire, is strong-featured and contemptuous. His lips curl, his eyes are hooded, as he stares about disdainfully at the star-seers’ shabby equipment, the tarnished astrolabes, the chipped stone wheels that serve as star-maps. He is a young man, strong and proud and fearless. This is a man, thinks the boy, who should be Emperor.

  The prince makes his way to the edge of the roof, where the
boy stands. The boy has never seen a prince before. The prince’ s gaze is cool and haughty. The boy thinks, you may be a prince, but you are not my prince. I am a man of the marshes, not a Merithuran. I will not be cowed by you, no matter what the rest may do.

  The prince halts before him. One of the star-seers pulls timidly at the boy’ s sleeve, but the boy stands his ground. The prince is not a tall man, but his massive, imposing head makes him seem bigger than he is. The boy and the prince stare at one another. The prince’ s eyes are as dark as the spaces between the stars, but they flash with glittering light and power. The boy trembles. Suddenly he knows that this man is stronger and more dangerous than all the sorcerers of the Black Palace combined. Yet he cannot look away, he cannot move. It is the same paralysis that gripped him during the Testing. And like that paralysis, this inability to act will purchase him a reward he does not deserve.

  The prince speaks. His voice is deep and powerful. ‘What is your name, boy?’

  The boy feels a jolt of surprise. It’ s so long since anyone asked that question, he has to think for a moment before replying. Perhaps his hesitation looks like arrogance. ‘They call me Darrow.’

  The prince nods. ‘My name is Samis.’ He puts his hand to his lips, then holds out his palm in greeting. Mechanically, as if in a dream, Darrow returns the gesture. His heart beats hard. He knows, dimly, that something important has happened, though he doesn’ t know what it is.

  As if he is no longer interested in the star-seers and their complicated work, Samis turns away, and goes down from the roof.

  The next day, just as he has ordered cushions for his chair and plums for his dinner, Samis demands that Darrow be sent to him, to be a companion in his work. ‘That boy is the only one of you snivelling wretches who is not afraid of me,’ he says.

  And so for a second time Darrow finds himself unjustly saved.