Only some
years later did he decide the time was right, not only for
Havenstar to be substantially expanded, but for it to be actively
used as a base in the fight against Lord Carasma and his Minions.
He brought in more people, encouraged Havenstar’s growth, and
actively searched for the kind of men and women who could best help
him in his fight against the Unmaker. Some of them, like Davron, he
showed how to imbibe ley, a skill he’d learned from his reading of
the holy texts. In the past, it had been an accepted practice for
knights to use ley, until—after several disastrous instances of
misuse—the Sanhedrin had named its use a sin of great evil. Even
Meldor could see there was some wisdom in this and was careful in
his selection of pupils, and even more careful in what he taught
them. Only Scow and Davron knew that coercion was possible, and
Scow could not use ley anyway.
Chantry began
to hear of Havenstar. Rumours drifted about for years, facts mixed
with fiction, until it was the fiction—abetted by Meldor’s agents
in the Havenbrethren—that swamped the fact.
Sorcerers, it
was said. Magic, it was said. A sanctuary guarded by dragons and
spells, shrouded in mists, where only the Unbound could go and all
others were turned into dragonseed, whatever
that
was, if
they dared to venture there. A place of palaces webbed with
filigree buttresses, surrounded by swamps where bunyips lurked to
eat unwary intruders. A place where magicians dwelt, who—for a
price—would turn the tainted into handsome margraves and
margravines… The stories multiplied until not even the most
gullible of chantors could believe them. For many years Chantry
heard, and scoffed.
But the
rumours persisted and in addition the Sanhedrin was sometimes made
uncomfortable by an increasing number of complaints from within the
Unstable about Chantry’s leadership. The excluded may have been
banished from the stabilities, but they were still considered to be
children of the Maker, and subject to Chantry’s jurisdiction, their
pastoral needs taken care of by itinerant chantors who were
themselves Unbound or simply excluded for one reason or another.
That was the theory. In practice, the Unbound were increasingly
reluctant to accept their maiming as the Maker’s punishment for
human intransigence, while the excluded were no longer prepared to
accept that their banishment was a justifiable burden because they
were different. They should have gone on obeying the word of the
Sanhedrin and worshipping in the same old way; instead they spoke
heresy, they talked of a blind holy man, and it all seemed to be
connected in some way to a place called Havenstar.
And so it was
that when Chantor Portron Bittle, tormented by the thought of Keris
being led to damnation, came to the Sanhedrin with his story in the
hope of rescuing her from Meldor’s clutches and Davron’s arms, he
was not received with the ridicule he expected.
~~~~~~~
‘Havenstar?
You think they were going to Havenstar?’ Anhedrin Rugriss Ruddleby
steepled his hands and looked over the top of them at Portron. The
rule-chantor did not look like someone who’d brought momentous
news. Rather Portron was pathetic. A worried, fussy little man who
had once been plump, but who had evidently lost a lot of weight
lately. A halo of white fly-away hair which encircled a shiny bald
patch only added to the general air of ineffectuality.
For a brief
moment Rugriss lost track of the seriousness of the topic under
discussion and preened with just a hint of smug satisfaction. He
gloried in his sleekness, and the thought that
he
was not
bald on top, but then he pulled himself back to what was important.
‘And why do you think this fellowship of yours was bound for
Havenstar?’ he asked.
Portron
wriggled uncomfortably. ‘Where else would they have been going,
Anhedrin Rugriss? They weren’t heading for any of the stabs, I’m
sure. Yet they were going somewhere settled. I overheard them
talking. They promised the lass, Keris Kereven, a shop. There are
no shops out in the Unstable. There has got to be a place, a
settled place. Where else but this Havenstar?’
‘What makes
you think Havenstar is real? Chantor, I’ve heard stories about
wyverns and witches, but it doesn’t mean that there are such
things.’
Portron, a
little desperately, persisted. ‘There are too many rumours about
Havenstar for it to be a mere fairytale. I’ve heard whispers of it
in the halts and the travellers’ lodges from here to Drumlin. I’ve
heard the Unbound speak of it as though it exists. And that man,
Davron, he’s Trician, I’m sure. Such a man has made himself a
domain somewhere, surely. He may call himself an Unstabler and a
guide, but he doesn’t work the route on a regular basis. I checked
that out. Nor has he lived on the Storre domain in years.’
‘Very well,
Chantor. You’ve made you point. You can safely leave the matter in
our hands now.’ The Anhedrin stood, his scarlet silk robes rustling
against the nacre sewn to the gold satin of his stole of office. He
shook the stole to sound the bells.
The doors
swung open in answer to the ringing and Portron was being ushered
out by the novice on door duty before he realised what was
happening. Then, at the last moment, he balked and Rugriss hid a
sigh. He watched as the chantor—all his instincts telling him to go
quietly—battled the temptation to take the easy way out, and
won.
‘Er—,’ he
started, sounding as wretched as he looked, ‘the lass—’
Rugriss raised
an eyebrow.
‘She has been
subverted by these men. A good lass, only needing the guidance of
Chantry, you understand.’
‘You can leave
the matter in our hands, Chantor.’
‘But—’
‘You are not
saying, surely, that we do not do what is best for our
faithful?’
‘Oh—er—no, of
course not.’ Flustered, Portron went down on one knee in the
posture of subservience and then left the room looking
miserable.
Rugriss was no
longer even looking at him.
The moment the
outer door closed behind the chantor, another opened on the
opposite side of the room and Cylrie Mannertee stepped in, her
elegant slippers making no noise on the plushness of the carpeting.
Rugriss, unsurprised by her entrance, waved a hand at the padded
chair just vacated by Portron. ‘You heard?’
She nodded.
‘Edion has surfaced again.’ She leaned back and crossed her legs,
arranging her robes carefully about her as she settled.
‘I’m afraid
so. Maker, if I’d known he was going to cause us problems like
this, I’d have had him dumped on his head from the knighten
wind-chime tower instead of just seeing him excluded.’ He looked at
her half-hopefully. ‘I don’t suppose it could be anyone else, could
it?’
‘Hardly.
Portron recognized him. Who’s the other?’
‘The Trician?
Davron of Storre. I asked around after the first time I talked to
our worthy rule-chantor. There’s an odd story there, too. Storre
was a Defender, had a promising career, then suddenly threw it all
up, walked out on his wife and children and disappeared into the
Unstable. As Portron said, he occasionally turns up doing a spot of
guiding. Competent fellow, I understand. Which makes this
particular crossing all the harder to comprehend.’ He began to
count off the fellowship’s disasters on his fingers. ‘The tainting
of a courier’s son, the corruption of a Trician youth, the maiming
of a raddled old whore, the subversion of a young woman, a Minion
discovered in their ranks, numerous attacks, the destruction of a
bridge beneath the girl and her subsequent fall and maiming—what
does all that tell us?’
Languidly, she
raised a eyebrow. ‘That it was a rough crossing?’
He ignored her
flippancy. ‘That the Unmaker took an amazingly close interest in
that particular fellowship.’
‘Or in one
particular member of it.’ She began to buff her fingernails on her
stole.
‘Exactly. But
which one? Edion? Davron? Kereven? And why?’
‘Possibly
Edion. Or what about the Kereven girl? A tent that vaporises, a
fall from a great height that ends up not being fatal, a hand
maimed in a peculiar way…all very mysterious. What’s Portron’s
interest there anyway?’
‘Besotted old
fool. Hankering after what he thinks of as prime virtue, I suppose.
The girl’s obviously as guilty as Chaos. She’s thrown her lot in
with ley-users. That worries me, Cylrie. That they use ley, I
mean.’
She frowned,
and a new set of wrinkles appeared on her face. ‘Why?’
He was angry,
knowing that she was asking the question for some devious reason of
her own. ‘You know perfectly well why! Because it’s an abomination.
Because using it gives people certain—certain powers that are evil.
We’ve all seen how Minions use it and Portron just told us that
Edion managed to stop him talking about what he saw, for a time
anyway. And using ley weakens Order. Holy taint, just think of the
damage one ley-user could do if he started splashing it around
inside a stab!’
A tiny smile
played around the corners of her lips. ‘Specifically, you’re just
afraid of what Edion might do with ley.’
‘Damn it,
yes!’
‘You’ve always
been in awe of him.’
‘You’re
needling me again, Cylrie. I’ll say it out loud if you want: Edion
scares me. I don’t know what he is after. I can’t imagine that he
would ever turn to Carasma, but he’s also not on our side and he is
dangerous.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I just wish I knew what he is
up to right now.’
‘He’s on his
way to Havenstar,’ she said calmly. ‘Friend Portron just told
you.’
He banged a
frustrated hand down on the arm of his chair. ‘How can Havenstar
exist, Cylrie? How is it possible to have a settlement in the
Unstable?’
‘People build
halts.’ She swung her leg, admiring the arch of her foot and the
elegant heel of her slipper.
‘Yes, but only
bang on top of a fixed feature. Which is always a small area. And
which gets smaller with every passing year. And even then they have
to hope a ley line doesn’t come their way. Did you know that the
halt between the Fourth and the Seventh disappeared overnight last
month, with fourteen people in it? It simply vanished into a new
ley line that had not existed the day before. Disorder be damned,
Cylrie, how can anyone build anything large that lasts out
there?’
‘Surely what
matters right now is not how, but why—and where. We must find it.
All the resources of Chantry must be turned to this problem.’ Her
casualness was suddenly gone; now she was poised steel, honed on
years of intrigue. ‘We’ve been letting Meldor-Edion make a mockery
of us, Rugriss. Somewhere out there, under our noses, he’s built a
place called Havenstar, and we’ve ignored it far too long. It’s my
belief that his plan is to use it as a base to attack us. I can
tell you what he wants. He wants power, he wants nothing less than
Chantry itself.’
‘How can you
possibly know that?’
‘I know
Edion.’
‘I doubt it,’
he said nastily. ‘If you’d known Edion, you wouldn’t have thought
you could seduce him.’
The look she
gave him flashed fire.
‘Oh yes, I
know why you hate him. He hurt your pride. You were a fool, Cylrie.
Edion is—was, anyway—an ascetic. He took his vows seriously and he
didn’t bed women. Or men for that matter. But then, I suppose that
was what attracted you in the first place. It always was the
excitement of the forbidden, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s all
last night’s dreams. Keep your mind on the present problem. What do
we do about Edion and Havenstar? Not to mention whosit of Storre,
this Kereven woman, and who knows how many others?’
‘I’ve called a
meeting of all the available Sanhedrin for immediately after
Reverence. I want your vote, Cylrie. That’s why I asked you to
listen in on Portron just now. I want to ask for the power to lead
out the Defenders of our Stability, and of the Sixth and the
Seventh as well, to find and destroy Havenstar. I want Edion dead,
and Storre with him. The Kereven lass I want brought here in
restraints. I want to find out what it is that enables a woman to
drop from a bridge into the Deep and remain unharmed.’
‘Perhaps she’s
a Minion. And so probably is Storre. He rejected his family because
he became a Minion and a Minion can’t go around hugging and kissing
his children and bedding a normal wife.’
‘Then how do
you explain the fact that he goes deep into stabilities? Once
again, I think you show just how little you know Edion. He would
not throw in his lot with Minions.’
She shrugged.
‘Perhaps he doesn’t know what they are. Surely it’s a simple thing
to—er—pull the wool over the eyes of a man who can’t see a damn
thing.’
Rugriss shook
his head, unconvinced.
‘You’ll have
my vote,’ she said. She’d relaxed again, examining her rings as she
spoke. They were ostentatiously large. ‘Of course you will. But
where will you lead your Defenders to, if you don’t know where
Havenstar is?’
‘I have an
inkling,’ he admitted. ‘There have been so many reports coming in
just lately, and they seem to be saying the same thing. Excluded
people, especially the Unbound, are heading south-east in both
small and large groups. They talk of a final battle, of being
needed by Havenstar. There’s been careless talk in halts and around
campfires. A number of chantors and concerned members of our
congregations have reported the essence of such talk. Of a ley line
called the Writhe, of a place bordered by the Riven. There are
clues. We know enough to know where to look.’
‘Clues?’ she
looked doubtful. ‘Clues make me think of traps.’
He was
dismissive. ‘That’s just your convoluted mind, my dear. What trap
could there be? Edion is not about to launch an attack on Chantry.
His followers wouldn’t stand for it, for a start. Being critical of
Chantry is one thing; waging war against us is another. And how
could a few maimed and tainted people entrap the forces of Chantry?
Besides, for all Edion’s deviousness, it’s not in his nature to
attack. He wasn’t a physical person.’ He smiled in memory. ‘Edion.
Edion. Who would have thought he’d walk this road…’