‘Oh, not that
large. Larger than the old fixed features, though. All more or less
the same size. I haven’t seen them myself, but from what I hear
they are all about a mile long and not quite as wide. And all with
edges ruled as straight as a sober man heading for his bed on his
wedding night. From what I’ve been able to find out, they all
appeared around about the same time. But why, and how, we don’t
know.’
‘Did anyone
see them appear?’
‘Not so far as
we can find out. There was a camp near one of them and the people
there said they heard a funny noise during the night, there was a
slight earth tremor accompanied by a flash of light bright enough
to illuminate the inside of their tents. Then, when they woke in
the morning, there it was on their doorstep, so to speak: a fixed
feature.’
‘If only we
could find out how it was done. And by whom. Or by what,’ Scow said
softly.
‘If only we
could replicate it,’ Rossel said. ‘There’s one not-so-good thing
about them, though. The tainted don’t like them. The say they start
feeling sick if they enter one for long.’
‘In that case,
they may be more like an ordinary stability, rather than a fixed
feature,’ Davron said with a quick frown.
‘I don’t know
what could have made them,’ she said. ‘I’ve often wondered what
caused fixed features. Some people say that they’re only remnants
of the old Margravate, just as the eight stabilities are. But why
then do they always have straight edges? My father took me once to
the huge Chantry library in Drumlin to see the map they keep there,
under glass. It supposedly dates back to the days shortly after the
Rending. There are no fixed features marked on it at all, not one.
Which seems to indicate they were something that developed
later.’
‘And
unfortunately, as we all know,’ added Meldor, ‘that post-Rending
period in our history was one of terrible turmoil, mass starvation
and so on. Records were lost, momentous events weren’t even
recorded... I doubt whether we’ll find the answer by looking
back.’
She shrugged.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t be much help. The best I could suggest would be
that all the new areas are marked on a map—accurately, mind—to see
if there is any clue provided by their relative positions or their
orientation. If it turns out that they are randomly scattered, I
don’t know what else to suggest.’ She stopped speaking, suddenly
aware that she was giving useful information to people who may not
have the best interests of the Unstable at heart. ‘If you’ll excuse
me, I’m tired. I think I’ll turn in. Glad to have met you, Master
Rossel.’ Before any of them could protest or detain her, she was
gone.
~~~~~~~
Davron sighed.
‘Suspicious as a kitten faced with a pack of dogs,’ he said.
‘Do you blame
her?’ Scow asked.
Davron laughed
and shook his head. ‘No. Creation, what a fellowship trip she’s had
for her pilgrimage! Just two weeks into the Unstable, and we’ve had
enough excitement for half a dozen trips. It’s a wonder she hasn’t
been demanding her money back.’
Rossel raised
an eyebrow. ‘That bad, eh?’
‘Worse,’ said
Meldor. ‘Believe me, this news of new fixed features is the only
good thing we’ve heard in weeks. Thanks for bringing it to us,
Ross.’
‘Good luck
that I found you. Where do you want me next?’
‘I think—I
think the time has come for us all to go ... home.’
‘Home, eh?
I’ve no quarrel with that. Tomorrow you can tell me why you look so
glum about it, but right now, if you fellows will excuse me, I’m
for bed as well. I’m whacked. I’ve had a horse under me so long
today I can’t get my knees together.’ He deposited some coins on
the table and headed for the stairs.
Scow signalled
the waitress for another drink and glanced across to where the
haltkeeper still sat. ‘What do you think Pickle told Keris?’ he
asked Meldor.
‘The details
of what happened to Piers, I suppose.’
Scow nodded
thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that’s all she ever came here for. Maybe she
doesn’t know about the maps. Maybe they’ve all gone, if ever the
Mantis brought them here to start with.’
Davron’s face
hardened. ‘Of course he did. Cissi Woodrug believed they were here.
She questioned the Mantis, who put her on to Piers because he’d
already sold them to the mapmaker. It’s logical, isn’t it? The
Mantis knew we were hard on his heels. Maybe he even knew the
Unmaker had got a whiff of the maps’ existence and wanted to
destroy them. He meets Piers and he knows a mapmaker would pay the
earth for a trompleri map—’
‘But neither
he nor Piers have them when Cissi the Minion looks,’ said
Meldor.
Davron gave a
low laugh. ‘Maker, she must have been furious when she realised
she’d been a shade too hasty in killing the only two men who might
know where they were.’
‘If only we’d
waited longer,’ Scow said, ‘instead of assuming that the Mantis was
still ahead of us!’
‘None of
that,’ Meldor said. ‘We did what we thought was best at the time.
We weren’t to know we’d missed him. The point is that the maps were
probably passed to Piers, and Piers hid them somewhere. Somewhere
here, in the Halt.’
‘And left some
sort of message among his things that told his daughter about
them,’ Scow suggested, ‘else why is she here, and how did she know
the name Kereven?’
‘It’s
possible,’ Meldor agreed. ‘I think the time has come for us to talk
to Keris Kaylen.’
‘Talk?’ Davron
asked, with a grim laugh. ‘She won’t tell you a thing! Use ley,
Meldor. Force her.’
‘Davron,
Davron, there are better ways. She’s a—’
‘She’s a
foolish child trying to ride a horse that’s too big for her, out of
greed, I imagine. Probably thinks she can make a fortune out of the
map. Doesn’t she realise her father died because of it? Or maybe
she doesn’t care.’ He drained his mug and stood up. ‘I’ll be in my
room if you want me.’
Meldor gave
the faintest of smiles as Davron disappeared upstairs. ‘Do you
think, Sammy, that just possibly our friend has found Kaylen a
shade more attractive than he wanted to?’
‘And that’s
why he’s acting like a mule with a headache lately?’ Scow was
astonished. ‘She’s not much to look at. Ley-life, Meldor, why would
he hanker after a mouse when he married a woman like Alyss of
Tower? Alyss is as beautiful as a summer’s day is long!’
‘A mouse? Is
that how you see Keris Kaylen, Sammy?’
Scow swilled
the last of his brew around in the bottom of his mug. ‘Well, not
quite. Her teeth are too sharp for a mouse, perhaps.’
‘Go on.’
They both knew
that they did not speak of Keris’s looks. ‘She is young, but hardly
a child. A woman who hasn’t yet been touched, let’s say. Wants very
much to be strong and has many elements of a rebel, but lacks the
real strength of a true dissident. Yet. At the moment she’s—a
mixture, I think. Capable in many ways, but unsure of herself.
Scared of the Unstable, but refusing to show it. Swings between
being confident and feeling insecure, between being excited by
adventure and being terrified of it, between knowing what she
wants, and not knowing at all.’ He grinned and his tongue lolled
out. ‘Pretty much as we were at that age, I suppose, and nothing
age won’t cure, one way or another.’
‘I think
perhaps you do her an injustice. Most of us weren’t like that, not
at her age. She’s lived all her life under the Rule, but it has
chafed, and she’s angry. She’s already questioning. We didn’t
question until we’d lived without the Rule, until we’d seen other
ways, heard other ideas. She’s special, Sammy.’
Scow nodded
thoughtfully. ‘You think she’s already questioning Chantry? She
still spends most of her time with the chantor.’
‘And who else
is she going to spend it with? Corrian? Graval? I don’t think she’s
too enamoured of Chantry. If Portron was the usual sort of
rule-chantor, I don’t think she would’ve spent five minutes in his
company. Portron just had the good sense to see that preaching to
her wouldn’t gain him anything. He may be a true believer, but he
hates contention, religious or otherwise. At the first sign of
disagreement or unpleasantness he backs away.’
Scow smiled.
‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’
‘I think I’ll
have a word with our host over there. If my senses tell me
correctly, he’s still there, and half awash, I’d say.’
Scow looked
across to Pickle. ‘Definitely half sunk. Potent stuff, this brew of
his.’
Pickle looked
up as Meldor came across to his table and his green face sagged a
little deeper into depression. ‘Damn it all, Margraf,’ he said,
‘have you any idea of how hard it’s becoming to get staff around
here? Anyone with any ambition or gumption finds out about
Havenstar, and the next thing I know, they’re off. And it’s all
your fault!’
~~~~~~~
Up in her
room, Keris was going through her things, sorting out clothes and
gear to be washed or repaired, and checking the fletching on her
arrows. It was late, but she was too frightened to think of going
to bed yet. Her thoughts were going round and round in circles.
Piers—one of the most competent of all Unstablers—had been killed
right in this building, surrounded by Defenders and canny
Untouchables like Pickle. Killed by a Minion and her pet. For a
map.
The map I now
have in my baggage.
She didn’t
know what to do. Hide the map somewhere? Destroy it? Keep it and
assume that the Unmaker’s Minions had no way of finding out she had
it? It’s very presence terrified her. She even wondered if the
Unmaker had tried to subvert her for some reason connected with it,
or whether she’d been just a random choice.
She had no
answer, and no one to ask.
She emptied
out her quiver on to the bed so that she could check over her
arrows, and a pile of sand came with them. ‘Tarnation,’ she
muttered. Where in the name of Creation had that come from? She
must have laid the quiver down on the ground at one stage, and
accidentally scooped up some sand into it. She took up a pinch and
put it in the palm of her hand. She fingered it, thinking that it
looked like a powdered form of the soluble iron salts she used as a
basis for her inks. She was running short of it, so instead of
throwing it away she poured it into one of her empty paint pots
instead.
She was
stowing the pot away with her mapping things when someone knocked
at her door.
He opened
the door to ’em
—
‘Who is it?’
she asked, her voice several tones higher than normal.
‘Meldor. I’d
like to talk to you.’
‘Do I have any
choice?’
He chuckled.
‘Only about the time. It can wait until tomorrow if you are
tired.’
She opened the
door. ‘And then spend all night worrying about what it is you’re
going to order me to do this time?’ she asked. ‘No thanks.’ She
didn’t know whether she was relieved or dismayed to see that he had
brought both Davron and Scow with him.
‘A drink?’
Scow asked and showed her a wine skin and several of Pickle’s
pewter mugs. ‘This is good Eighth Stab red, not Pickle’s
gut-wrenching brew.’
She’d never
drunk alcohol in her life, but it suddenly seemed a good time to
start. ‘Thank you.’ She waved a hand towards her bed. ‘The
accommodation is somewhat cramped, but take a seat.’
Scow poured
wine into a mug and handed it over. She sipped tentatively,
uncertain whether she liked it.
‘We want to
know why you chose to come here, to Pickle’s Halt,’ Meldor said,
sitting down. Davron settled next to him; Scow joined her on the
floor, back to the wall.
‘I would have
thought that was perfectly obvious,’ she said.
‘Don’t be
ridiculous,’ Davron said. ‘You didn’t come here just because your
father died here—’
Meldor frowned
at him and interrupted. ‘We believe just before he died your father
was given some items that belonged to us. We want them back.’
‘You were
looking for my father before he even arrived here.’
‘Not exactly.
We were looking for the Unbound who also died here that night, the
Mantis. Look, let me begin at the beginning.’ He accepted a mug of
wine from Scow. ‘We had a friend. A man named Kereven Deverli, a
young mapmaker. He was a talented young man; brilliant. Better,
perhaps than your father even. He didn’t make standard maps for
pilgrims though. He was more interested in—well, in trompleri maps.
I’m guessing you know what they are?’
She gave a
curt nod.
‘He believed
the best way to make the Unstable safe for pilgrims was to
rediscover trompleri techniques. Davron and I know more about ley
than any man alive, and he came to us because he thought we might
be able to help him. Well, we did help him. We found him a safe
place to stay, we paid him and in return he promised to let us know
if he uncovered the secret of the technique. And apparently he did.
He made a number of trompleri maps. He sent word to us, but
unfortunately before we arrived to see what he’d done, the Unmaker
discovered what he was doing. A tainted traitor was dispatched to
kill him and destroy all the maps.
‘We believe
some maps survived. How many we don’t know. It could have been just
one. Anyway, it—or they—were spirited away by Deverli’s assistant,
the Mantis.’
She listened
without comment, sipping her drink. She tried to sense whether he
spoke the truth, but couldn’t judge.
How much eyes normally
betray a speaker,
she thought.
But his blind eyes tell me
nothing.
‘If the Mantis
had then brought the maps to us, he might still be alive,’ Meldor
continued. ‘Unhappily, he tried to sell them. We heard about that,
and Minions got to hear of it as well. They reported back to Lord
Carasma, who sent Cissi Woodrug after him. He fled as far and as
fast as he could. We came after him as well, but somehow missed
him. We thought he might be heading for Piers, believing that a
mapmaker would buy such maps, so we headed for the First after
leaving here. Davron went to Kibbleberry, as you know, but Piers
was not there. By then, in fact, he was dead. When we found out
that, we all came back here, but could find nothing. We were
prepared to think that the maps had been irretrievably lost, so we
decided to return home. Then, when we were gathering together a
fellowship in Hopen Grat, you turned up.’