Fisher, Catherine - The Hidden Coronet #3

THE PATH WAS A TRAIL OF GOLD. Coins had been trodden deep in the mud, one on another. On each side rose a hillock of spilling metal, and as the moons drifted through the snow-cloud Galen saw in the very heart of the Hoard a great golden reliquary, carved and encrusted with gems. It stood on a platform; the Sekoi led them up to it without a word, and under the moons each of them had seven shadows, a hidden company that seemed to follow stealthily at their heels.

Solon’s scarred fingers reached for the handrail; above him the Sekoi reached down to help. Galen hauled himself after them, the snow falling in his eyes. At the top the Archkeeper stared, then crumpled to his knees.

“Dear God,” was all he could say.

The reliquary was a coffin, sealed with glass.

In it lay a man.

A small man, thin and wiry. He had brown hair and a clipped brown beard and his clothes were of Makercloth, incorruptible and perfect. He had been dead for three hundred years, but he looked as if at any second he might open his eyes and speak to them.

Galen stood still, catching his breath as if struck with a sharp pain.

At the heart of the Great Hoard they had found the body of Kest.

And Flain’s Coronet lay between his hands.

27

Each man on this world has seven shadows.

Poems of Anjar Kar

THEY BOTH STARED AT HER.

“Think about it!” Ignoring the knife, Carys turned on Raffi. “Marco was on the next street! I was miles away. So was the Sekoi. The only ones in the cellar with you were Solon and Galen! It has to be one of them!”

“Not Galen!” Raffi snapped.

“And not Solon!” Marco lowered the knife. He looked stunned and winded, as if someone had punched him in the stomach. “They tortured him. I saw them drag him back into the cell. I saw him bleed. They were going to hang us.”

“No, they weren’t!” Carys shook her head, impatient. “It was a setup, all of it. Solon was the bait—they wanted him to be rescued. Work it out!” She looked at his face and her voice softened. “Marco, the Margrave must have heard the rumors about the Crow—they’d be in every intelligence return. So they set up bait—a keeper, someone whose mind is so broken they can control him. Maybe more than one, in different places. Public places, where everyone can see. And when Galen rescued Solon, the Margrave let it happen. We took the Margrave with us, to all our places. To Sarres. To the Great Hoard.” She shook her head desperately. “We were so stupid! It’s the oldest trick in the book. And because Solon was such a harmless, kindly old man . . .”

“No!” Marco twisted away.

She grabbed his sleeve. “Believe it. It’s true. I know how they work.”

“Not Solon.” His voice was an agony. Raffi looked away, feeling sick and miserable, but Carys was relentless. “Solon! And we’ve led him straight to the Coronet.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He’s down there, isn’t he? And if he puts it on . . .” She whirled on Raffi, her face white in the falling snow. “My God, Raffi! If he puts it on, the Margrave will control the weather-net, the moons, who knows what! We may have given him the greatest weapon in the world.”

IT WAS A CIRCLE OF DULL GOLD, frail and perfect. On the inside were minute letters, strange and unreadable. Galen reached out and brushed the scattered snow off the glass. “So this is your ransom,” he whispered.

The Sekoi was staring at the dead face of the Maker. “Indeed. I had always known he was here, but how strange it is to see him. The one who caused all our anguish. Who ruined a world, and then repented.”

“How did he come here?”

The Sekoi shrugged. “I’m not of the Council. They might know. Alone of the Makers only Kest truly died. When the others had gone my people must have brought his body here. But I know nothing of how, or from where.”

Solon had not moved. When he uncovered his face they caught the wet glint of tears. Galen bent over him. “Come,” he said gruffly. “We need to hurry.”

But the Archkeeper seemed struck to the heart. His astonishment was deeply personal, a grief that Galen felt rising from somewhere endlessly deep inside him, a great pit, a terrible darkness.

“After all this time,” he muttered. “To see him again.”

He bowed his head, then staggered up unsteadily and looked around. For a second he seemed hardly to know where he was.

“All right?” Galen asked.

“Yes, my son.” The Archkeeper wiped his face with his sleeve. “The shock.”

“We need to open the glass.” Galen put both hands on it and pushed, then sent a line of energy rippling around its edges feverishly.

“How does it work?”

The Sekoi bit its nails. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll break it if I have to,” Galen growled. But to his astonishment he felt the glass melt. Suddenly there was no lid. Tiny flakes of snow fluttered onto Kest’s hair.

“Take it,” Solon whispered. “Hurry!”

They were each filled with the same thought, that Kest would open his eyes, snatch Galen’s hand. With an effort Galen reached down and touched the Maker’s hands.

They were cold, and as he lifted the Coronet from them carefully he thought that these were the hands that had made evil, that had brought it into the world.

He shook the thought away and looked at the relic.

It was icy. Its very touch went through his mind like a silent chord of music, and it was light in his hands, as if it had no weight. Moonlight reflected from it. He held it on his palms; the precious, fragile hope of the world.

“What now?” The Sekoi fidgeted.

Galen was still. Then he held the Coronet out. “Archkeeper.”

“My son, surely the Crow . . .”

“This is for you to do. The leader of the Order. Who better than a healer to heal the weather?”

Solon smiled ruefully. He nodded and held out his scarred hands. The moonlight touched the edge of his face and through the soft drift of falling snow his hair gleamed like silver. His fingers closed over Galen’s.

“Don’t let him take it!”

The yell rang across the vast arena. Echoes of it sent loose fragments of stone crashing. The Sekoi jumped; Solon snatched the Coronet and whirled around.

“He’s the spy! It’s him!” Carys leaped down from the slithering gold, breathless and gasping. She aimed the bow hurriedly.

Behind them Marco dropped to the ground. In an instant he had rushed at them; Galen took a quick step back, then a flicker of light cracked from his hands. There was a stench of scorched flesh and Marco yelped, rolling in agony, the knife clattering onto the heap of treasure.

“You fool!” he yelled at Galen. “Don’t you see?”

Galen turned, grim-faced.

Solon had the knife. He slashed the air with it. “Keep back,” he snarled. “All of you!”

The change in him horrified them. It was a total transformation, something deep in the tissues of his skin, so that his eyes were darker and the very muscles of his face had clenched and hardened, all his kindliness dropped like a mask.

“Put the bow down.”

Carys didn’t waver. “If you try and put the relic on,” she said tightly, “I’ll kill you.”

“I believe you.” He smiled, a crooked, unfamiliar smile. “But your hands aren’t your own now. Not if I want them to be mine. They have been mine a long time.”

To her horror she felt her fingers slacken. The bow clattered among the gold, its bolt spilling out.

Solon raised the Coronet in one hand. “Now watch,” he said.