Fisher, Catherine - The Hidden Coronet #3

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Frost Fair

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Mardoc’s Ring

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

The Vortex

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Cage of Stories

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

The Circling

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

The Great Hoard

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Teaser chapter

DIAL BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Published by The Penguin Group

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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States 2011

by Dial Books

an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head Children’s Books 2000

Copyright © 2000 by Catherine Fisher

All rights reserved

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fisher, Catherine, date.

The hidden Coronet / by Catherine Fisher.

p. cm.—(Relic Master ; 3)

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Raffi and Master Galen continue to evade the

Watch as they seek the Coronet, a potent ancient relic that could be their only hope for defeating the power that is destroying Anara.

ISBN : 978-1-101-51702-4

[1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Antiquities—Fiction.] I.Title.

PZ7.F4995Hid 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010039315

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Colin

Frost Fair

1

In rumor and strange sayings the truth

will hide.

Snow will fall, the heart freeze over.

We will come when no one expects us.

Apocalypse of Tamar

TWO MEN SAT ON A BENCH ON THE ICE.

Between them a brazier glowed with hot coals, its metal feet sinking into a pool of meltwater.

They sat silent, in the heart of the Frost Fair; in its racket of bleating sheep, barking dogs, innumerable traders calling their wares and, above all, the ominous hammering. Meats sizzled on spits, babies screamed, jugglers threw jingling bells, fiddlers played for coins, and in cushioned booths Sekoi of all colors told spellbinding stories, their voices unnaturally sharp and ringing in the bitter cold.

Finally the older man stirred. “Are you sure?” he muttered.

“I heard it in Tarkos. Then again last week in Lariminier Market. It’s certain.” The cobbler, still in his leather apron, stared bleakly out at the black Watchtower in the center of the frozen lake, as if afraid its sentinels could hear him from there.

“He’s been seen?”

“So they say.” The cobbler’s dirty heel scratched at a fish skeleton frozen in the ice; its wide eye stared up at him. “There’s been a lot of talk. Prophecies and odd rumors. What I heard was, that on Flainsnight last year there was an enormous explosion. The House of Trees split wide and out of it, on black wings, a vision rose up into the sky, huge over Tasceron.” He glanced around, making the sign of honor furtively with his hand. “It was him. The Crow.”

The old man spat. “Incredible! What did it look like?”

“Huge. Black. A bird and not a bird. You know, like it said in the old Book.”

“I might. And it spoke?”

“So the woman who told me said.”

A scar-bull clattered by pulled by two men, its hooves slipping on the glassy lake. When they had gone the old man shrugged. “Could be just rumor.”

The cobbler glanced around, worried. Behind them a peddler was hawking ribbons and pins and fancy lace, a crowd was watching two men come to blows over the price of geese, and a boy was turning cartwheels among the stalls, a few coppers in his cap on the ice. The cobbler drew up closer and dropped his voice. “No. Why do you think the Watch have doubled their patrols? They’ve heard; they have spies everywhere.”

“So what did it say, this vision?”

“It said, ‘ Listen Anara, your Makers are coming back to you; through the darkness and emptiness I call them. Flain and Tamar and Soren, even Kest will come. They will dispel the darkness. They will scatter the power of the Watch.’ ”

The words, barely whispered, seemed dangerous, charged with power, as if they sparked in the freezing air. In the silence that followed, the racket of the fair seemed louder; both men were glad of it. The peddler had spilled his tray and was kneeling on the ice, picking up pins awkwardly with numb fingers. The wind scuttered a few closer to the brazier, like silver slivers.

The old man held gloved hands to the heat. “Well, if it’s true . . .”

“It is.”

“. . . Then it will change the world. I pray I live to see it.” He looked ruefully over the tents and stalls to the Watchtower, glinting with frost. “But unless the Makers come tomorrow, it’ll be too late for those poor souls.”

From here the hammering was louder. The half-constructed gallows were black, a rickety structure of high timbers built directly onto the ice, one man up there now on a ladder, hauling up the deadly swinging nooses of rope. Above him the sky was iron-gray, full of unfallen sleet. Smoke from the fair’s fires rose into it, a hundred straight columns.

“Another black frost tonight,” the cobbler muttered.

The old man didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “I hear one of the prisoners is a keeper.”

The cobbler almost sat upright. Then he relapsed onto the rough bench, biting his thumbnail. “Dear God,” he whispered. “To hang?”

“To hang. Tomorrow, like all the rest.”

Over the lake the hammering ended abruptly. The nooses swung, empty, frost already glinting on them.

The peddler picked up the last needle. He straightened with a groan, then limped over. “Goods, gentlemen?” he whined. “Samples of ribbon. Beads. Bright scarves. Something for the wife?”

The cobbler shook his head sourly; the old man smiled. “Dead, my friend. Long dead.”