‘You are aware
I could … coerce you.’
‘I suppose so,
but I doubt whether I’d ever find the answer to trompleri
techniques if you made a slave of me.’ She did not comprehend the
flicker of appreciation across his face. He stood for a while
longer, listening to the sounds of her brushing, the satisfied
snuffling of the horse, then he turned and walked away. She watched
him go: straight-backed, undefeated by her rejection.
She leant her
head against Tousson’s back and stifled a desire to weep. She knew
he was right; there was no way out for her. Born a woman, born to
fit the mould made for her by her sex and her father’s profession,
born to obey the Rule because to disobey was to risk the
destruction of what was left of the world.
The tyranny of
guilt
.
You fool,
Keris. You ought to go with him
, she thought.
The destiny he
offers is better, surely, than that which awaits you in Salient.
You know what awaits you in Salient. Boredom. Subjection to the
Rule for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?
The more
rational side of her replied,
In Davron’s company, you may not
make it further than the next camp down the trail.
She sighed and
sat down on the feed bin in the stall. What in the name of all
Creation should she do?
~~~~~~~
She was
packing away the horse comb and brush when Davron came. She shot
him a flat look and flung the horse blanket back over Tousson.
‘What do you want?’ she asked ungraciously.
‘Meldor seems
to think I might be able to persuade you to come with us.’
‘He’s mad.
It’s because of you I won’t go! Are you insane, the pair of you?
The moment I found a way of making trompleri maps, if I ever did,
you would be making a worship sacrifice to tell your Lord to send
his Minions down on my head.’ She did not really believe what she
said, but she derived a childish satisfaction from saying it
nonetheless.
‘I’m no spy
for Carasma, let alone one of his worshippers,’ he said mildly. ‘Be
rational, Keris. I am sure that you can see that my one hope is to
destroy Carasma’s power. Then he can’t command me to perform any
task for him. And one way to break his hold is to have trompleri
maps. With people able to travel through the Unstable with a
minimum of risk, there will be more and more Order here, less
Chaos—’
‘And while all
this is going on, Lord Carasma just calmly watches? He might not be
able to order an execution, but he can hint to his servants it
might be a good idea to hunt down the mapmaker, just as he
apparently did with Deverli. And even if he didn’t, you need more
than trompleri maps to bring Lord Carasma to his knees. Sweet
Creation, we’re talking about the
Unmaker
! He has ruled the
Unstable for a thousand years. He destroyed old Malinawar, all
except a few islands of stability in this hellish sea. Perhaps he
destroyed the whole of the rest of the world. I know he wiped away
a whole mountain of the Impassables. Who’s to say he could not also
wipe away everything beyond the borders of what was once the
Malinawar Margravate?’
She untied
Tousson and led her to the feed bin, retying her there as she added
softly, ‘I’ve read the histories. My father bought us a copy of
Torgath’s Annals when I was a child. Once there were oceans of
water, and lands across them where our ships sailed; once there
were whole countries to the west and south that we traded with, and
what have we left of all that? What happened to all those other
places? They haven’t come to our rescue. Doubtless they suffer from
Carasma’s depredations just as we do. Perhaps they never discovered
how to prevent the encroachment of Chaos; perhaps they’re all dead.
And yet you want me to believe you have a way to bring Carasma to
his knees with a few maps? Don’t make me laugh!’
She ducked
under Tousson’s neck and came to face him, hands on her hips. ‘And
that’s not the only hole in this offer of yours. There are other
gaps large enough for a whole ley line to flow through. Meldor says
he’ll set me up as a mapmaker, as if any Rule Office would tolerate
a woman mapmaker in their jurisdiction. Not even a bribe of
treasury proportions would buy such an aberration.’ She gave him a
contemptuous look. ‘You must both think I’m awfully stupid.’
He was silent
for a long moment. Then he shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, I suppose it
must seem that way. I think it was more that we expected you to
take a lot on trust. We did not intend to set you up in a shop in a
stab, you know. You are right, Chantry would not countenance it. We
had other ideas.’
‘Do you really
expect me to follow you without a full explanation of what you’re
up to?’
There was
another long silence. ‘All I can say is that, as unlikely as it may
sound, if trompleri techniques can be rediscovered, I believe
there’s a possibility we may free ourselves from the Unmaker. At
the very least, a great many people will be saved from what
happened to Quirk, and what happened to Baraine.’ He had half
turned away, avoiding meeting her eyes. ‘Yes, I’ll admit it, I want
this too, more than you could possibly guess, for myself. For my
own well-being. You are probably my only chance. But I would not
ask you for myself, because you are right: join us and you could
die. Die horribly, and die soon. I am not worth that kind of
sacrifice from anyone. I neither ask it nor expect it nor desire it
for myself. But I have dedicated my life, what dregs I have of a
life, to bringing down Carasma. And a trompleri map could help do
it.’
She stared at
him. ‘You want revenge!’
‘Chaos above,
what sort of a man do you think I am? That I would go after the
Unmaker
for revenge?’
‘Then what do
you want?’
‘For the
Unstable, for Unstablers, I want security. For myself—’ He paused
and when he finally spoke again she barely caught the words. ‘I
want peace.’
His expression
was as bleak as a mid-winter’s day in Drumlin’s Cess. Her
irritation melted away.
He went on,
‘My advice to you as a friend would be to leave us. To get as far
away as you can go. It would be safer, but it wouldn’t be
right,
Keris. This is everyone’s fight. Our stabilities are
prisons and the walls are closing in on us. We have to fight back
or one day there will be nowhere for us to live, no place for our
children.’
She could not
speak. She rubbed her arms for warmth and wondered why his words
made her feel so cold.
He said, ‘Join
us. Please. There is no reason that Carasma should suspect you to
be a master mapmaker. A woman? It’s unheard of! There is nothing
that will make him fear you.’
She gave a dry
laugh, trying to dispel the coldness of her fear. ‘Creation,
Davron, you underestimate him! In the ley line he turned me inside
out. What do you think he first offered me? And what do you think I
replied? This will make you laugh—I told him a career as a mapmaker
was not enough. Nothing less than granting me the ability to make
trompleri maps would be enough to make me give up my soul to him.
And I didn’t really mean it. We both knew that was the one thing he
could never allow.’
His shock
rendered him speechless.
‘I think there
are more of his spies about than you know,’ she said. ‘Graval had
you fooled. You didn’t even suspect he was ley-lit, as he must have
been, let alone suspect what his loyalties were. How many more of
Carasma’s Minions are there, travelling in disguise in fellowships,
lurking here in the halt even, somehow shielding themselves from
the touch of Order?’
‘We will put
an end to that. All Minions wear a sigil; we can check. We are
sending out warnings.’
She continued,
relentless. ‘Anyway, Carasma didn’t need spies to find out all
about me. He knew who I was the moment he drowned me in the ley of
the line he occupied. He knew my innermost desires and my guilt. He
knew I was haunted by my mother’s death. Spies, and an ability to
touch the minds of those he confronts in the line: a lethal
combination. Don’t talk to me about my safety, Master Guide,
because I don’t believe in it.’
He stared at
her, still silent, then made a another frustrated gesture with his
hand. ‘You’re right. Go home. Or go to your uncle. At least you
will be safe.’ There was no bitterness in his voice; what she heard
was worse than that. It was a hopelessness so corrosively pungent
it seemed to contaminate the air between them. For a moment they
continued to look at one another, and in that moment she saw once
again the echo if his desire for her, that inexplicable stirring of
a man of experience and position, for
her
. Then the echo
faded into the despair and he turned to go.
He has made
the decision to kill himself, as you once suggested to him.
The
thought came unbidden and stayed to poison her choice.
No
,
her more rational self protested.
He wouldn’t do that.
And
then,
Oh, he wouldn’t fall on his knife, perhaps. But there are
other ways of dying
…
She had a
sudden vision of Sheyli. Of her mother sending her away to have a
chance at life. And she, Keris, accepting the chance that had meant
a betrayal of the woman who had given her life.
‘Wait,’ she
said, panicking.
Davron turned
back, pausing merely as a courtesy, without hope or
expectation.
‘You—you have
decided to die,’ she said.
Emotion
twitched at one corner of his mouth. ‘That was once your advice. It
has begun to look more attractive. But no, I’ve not decided to take
my own life.’ She noted the careful wording and her heart lurched,
stricken, as if it was all her fault. ‘Would you perhaps go with
Meldor, if I was not there?’ he asked, carefully neutral.
Her heart
hammered as if she cared what happened to him. As if he mattered to
her.
But I don’t even like him.
He said, ‘I
can’t jeopardise Meldor’s plans by my presence anymore. And
perhaps, if I am not there, you will ride with him. He needs you,
Keris. Help him. Help him bring down the Unmaker. That is his aim.
I was just along for the ride. Ah, don’t look so upset, I’m not
going to cut my own throat.’
‘There’s more
than one way to kick a dog.’
‘I promise I
won’t actively seek death, either.’
He’s
lying,
she thought.
He’ll challenge every Minion he sees.
He’ll be a one-man rampage across the Unstable until something gets
to him before he gets to it. Shut up, Keris! You are swamping
yourself with guilt!
‘Wait,’ she
said, as he turned to go once more. ‘Perhaps I’ll go with you and
Meldor and Scow, if—’
He continued
to wait, without expression.
She took a
deep breath. ‘—if you can explain to me why you made this bargain
with the Unmaker. If you tell me what you gained from it.’
The blackness
of his eyes flashed with a brilliant anger. ‘What difference does
that make?’
She struggled
for the right words. ‘If I can understand what makes a man strike
such a bargain, then perhaps I won’t … fear you so much. Despise
you so much.’
I might understand why my instincts tell me to
trust you.
A chuckle of
reluctant amusement broke through his anger. ‘Ley-life, but you
have an honest streak, Kaylen!’ He regarded her, smile fading into
calculation, apparently debating her tentative offer.
With sudden
premonition, she thought,
I’m not going to like this
.
He leant
carelessly against the door post of the stall, in control again. He
was suddenly the Master Guide once more, the man who’d waited for
customers back in Hopen Grat and had stared more at her horses than
at her. ‘What could the Unmaker offer me?’ he mused in bitterness.
‘I had everything I ever wanted… I’ll tell you what he offered, and
you can see if you dare to judge me.’
And she
listened while his words went through her like a cold shafting of
ley. ‘He offered me the life and sanity of my wife. Of my daughter.
And of my unborn son. I took up his offer… And I’d do it all over
again. There, does that answer your question?’
~~~~~~~
It is written
that before the Rending, many were the wild creatures that lived in
the Realm of the Maker. The fish of the sea were wondrous to
behold, the birds of the sky were a joy unto the eyes of Humankind,
and the animals that walked the Margravate were too numerous to
count. Some were fearful in aspect; others were venomous. Many were
dangerous—but this I say unto you: none were as dangerous as the
Wild, for the Wild were created by the Unmaking. They are a
perversion and should they cross your path, beware.
—The Rending 9:
10: 2
A day’s ride
and the Roughs, the plains that surrounded Pickle’s Halt, were
behind them. The horses, fresh after their rest and well-fed on the
halt’s fodder, did not like the pock-marked surface of the plains,
and the echo of their hooves resounding from the hollowness of the
land beneath them made them capricious and skittish.
‘It’s getting
worse,’ Keris heard Scow mutter to Davron. ‘The spaces below are
widening.’
The guide
nodded, seemingly imperturbable, although she wondered. ‘I’m afraid
you’re right,’ he said.
Just at sunset
they reached the long line of the cliff barrier bordering the
southern edge of the plains, a blue band of rock stitched on to the
flat land like coloured braid around the hem of a chantor’s robe.
It was called the Sponge. They camped there, a bare hundred paces
from the cliff, for the night.
She eyed the
Sponge uneasily as they erected their tents in the twilight. She’d
heard her father speak of it often enough. ‘Full of the Wild,’ he’d
said. ‘Even the Minions hate it. And no way around.’