Fisher, Catherine - The Hidden Coronet #3

The Sekoi stared down at it, face drenched and blank. Solon patted it kindly on the shoulder. “All will be well, my friend.”

The Sekoi looked past him at Carys. “Will it?” it said coldly.

For an hour they hurried through the storm. Galen was relentless and would allow few rests, but even Solon was anxious to keep going.

“How far is this place?” Marco gasped as they crashed down through a sheshorn copse.

The Sekoi glared. “Never mind.”

Marco laughed, hefting the bow. “Scared I’ll find my way back one day?”

“My son, there may not be many more days if we fail,” Solon muttered, stumbling. The bald man grabbed him.

“Keep your feet, Holiness.”

Carys turned, looking for Raffi. He was far behind; she waited, anxious. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

But he wasn’t. It had come again, that flicker of evil. Something dark, right among them. Something he had seen once before, a shape that still lurked at the back of his mind, in the corners of his nightmares.

Carys looked at him hard, then said, “Tell me later. Come on.”

The storm faded. After a while there was only rain and wind and then even the rain died, and above the trees they saw patches of sky glinting with stars. They ran down steep, rutted tracks hollowed by the passage of a thousand Sekoi-carts. It was hard to keep their footing in the puddles and mud; Galen slipped on his stiff leg and swore. Splashing through a stream they plunged back into a fir wood, the trunks so black and closely set that even the Sekoi lost its way and only Galen’s hurried conversation with the trees got them out.

An hour later, as they climbed a steep hillside, the moons came out, all seven, with Lar very low to the east. Raffi gazed up at them in relief, but Carys grabbed his coat.

“What’s that?”

On the ridge above them a vast dim shape rose against the stars. It was crouching down, and for a second Raffi thought it some monster of Maar, gigantic and watchful, one arm flung out, until the sense-lines told him it had no life. It was stone.

“Climb up to it,” the Sekoi muttered.

They pulled themselves up wearily, under the colossus. In the darkness its dim eyes seemed to watch them come, a vast kneeling Sekoi, crowned with silver, its hand pointing away over the hilltop.

In its shadow they paused for breath. Marco stared up in amazement. “So there were cat-kings, once.” He moved out of the Sekoi’s hearing and said quietly, “Can you credit their crazy ideas? To buy the planet! How can they believe that?”

“Faith is not about reason,” Solon said gravely. “It’s another thing altogether.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

Solon rubbed his muddy hands in distress. “My son, you may surprise us all yet.”

Galen was looking back; beside him Raffi knew he was sensing deep into soil and stone.

“Are they coming?”

“Not yet.”

“But you can’t feel the Sekoi,” Carys said.

“I can feel any disturbance of the trees. There’s none as yet.”

She looked around. “We ought to set up a few traps. Slow them down.”

Galen smiled, mirthless. “Training dies hard, Carys. Let them come.”

“Even the Watch?” Seeing his look, she moved closer, her voice low. “I ran into them, a patrol, back at the observatory. They’re following us. Someone’s getting information straight to Maar, Galen, and I don’t understand who or how.”

He was still a moment. Then he said, “I know.”

The path led right under the cat-king’s body, a trail beaten around its vast knee and over a half-buried foot. Marco watched the serene face nervously, all the way.

Over the hill the land dropped. Now they could see other colossi spaced out over a wide plain, some sitting, some standing like grim sentinels, each pointing the way to an immense and bizarre ruin far off on the horizon, a dark outline that troubled Raffi’s nerves.

Slowly, the moons climbed above them. At their fastest pace it took over two hours to cross the plain, and as they came to the last statue the Sekoi stopped and doubled up, clutching its side.

“Need a rest,” it gasped.

Marco already had his boot off and was rubbing a sore foot; Carys and Solon drank from the water flasks. Unwinding the scarf from his neck Raffi shuddered, and stopped.

Snow had begun to fall. Through it he saw at last the image of the Margrave. It loomed out of his memory, a hateful shadowy outline turning toward him, its dry reptilian whisper mocking him.

“Raffi.”

He couldn’t move. He was sweating, felt utterly sick. “Raffi?” Galen caught his arm. “What is it?”

Dazed, he looked around. Snow fell between them. Galen’s voice was oddly quiet. “What did you see?”

He moistened dry lips. “Him. The Margrave.”

Galen crouched. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Keep your voice down.”

Raffi rubbed his face anxiously with both hands. Then he whispered. “It’s here, isn’t it? With us?”

“Galen?” The Sekoi’s tall shadow darkened them. “We must hurry.”

It stood aside, and in the drift of the snow they saw a host of bell-like shapes, each hanging from a wooden pole.

“What’s this?” Marco asked gruffly. “More trouble?”

“Shadowchimes.” The Sekoi shrugged gracefully. “As our shadows touch them they will chime out a warning. I’m afraid there is nothing we can do about it. My people will know.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Galen looked back over the plain.

Carys crossed to him. “They’re coming?”

“Hundreds of them. Fast.”

“How long have we got?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at the Sekoi. “Are we close?”

The creature turned and walked into the chimefield.

“We’re here,” it said.

The Great Hoard

26

“Help me!” the innkeeper screamed, drowning in riches. Agramon smiled.

“Why?” she said. “This is what you’ve wanted all your life.”

Agramon’s Purse

THEY WERE UNDER THE WALLS of the ruin. Behind them the shadowchimes still rang; gong-like notes, soft and disturbing.

Raffi put a hand on the wall, feeling through the holes in his gloves how each enormous block of stone had been expertly fitted, though now snarlbines and weeds were sprouting through the cracks.

Snow clung to his hair; strange wet stuff, faintly phosphorescent. He climbed hurriedly after Galen, up steep steps and under a vast drafty archway into a dark interior. The floor was paved here; all around were arches and galleries, the stonework fallen and crumbling, making their footsteps echo and multiply like some invading army.

It was bitterly cold.

As he came through, small shadows slunk behind him; turning, he saw their eyes gleam in the dark. The sense-lines told him they were cats, cats of all sizes and colors, their pointed inquisitive faces alert in holes and on walls.

The Sekoi climbed ahead, a spindly figure. As it emerged into the open again, snow clotted its fur.

“There,” it said proudly. “What no Starman ever beheld until now. The Great Hoard.”

Below them a huge arena descended, a ghostly crater of stone. Thousands of seats and steps and galleries gleamed pale in the snow-light, and out of them sprouted a jungle of weeds and self-seeded plants, in places tangled into tunnels of gloom. A sweet smell of mutated flowers rose up from its depths; they saw white frostblossoms and tiny spring bulbs that had thrust out and flowered already in the drafty shelter of columns and balustrades, and from the split seating bulbous fungi ballooned.