Catherine Fisher - The Lost Heiress

But halfway out he called after her. “I’ll hear all about it when you get back.”

“I’m sure you will,” she murmured, and stalked down the corridor.

Five minutes later she knew he was having her followed. He wasn’t using his own people, but a woman in a red dress—that was the one she was supposed to see—and a thin boy, the one she wasn’t. She grinned. He was clever, but it was standard stuff. Maybe training was better these days.

She lost the woman in the Square of the Rainbow Fish, where there was a tatty scatter of stalls and food-sellers. The boy was more difficult. She knew she had to pretend she didn’t know he was there, that he’d lost her by accident. She tried ducking through doorways and corridors, but he obviously knew the ways of the place more intimately than she did. Then she had a better idea. She’d let him follow.

Finding the Hall of Moons was bewildering, even with the map. She passed through endless halls, one so dark it was lit by candles, another piled with broken chairs, thousands of them, in some bizarre toppling structure, all interwoven, with a tunnel for passersby through the middle. The Passage of Nightmare, which she’d looked forward to seeing, was painted entirely black, and had no lights in it from one end to the other. She unslung her crossbow as she padded through it, and only three people passed her there, as if it was avoided. The Gallery of Tears ran with rain, dripping from the vast golden roof, so that the name still seemed right. She turned and climbed through whole labyrinths of corridors, always upward, and once or twice when she passed through a wide square or long room, she glimpsed the boy far back, clever, never obvious.

The Hall of Moons was barred by two great doors and two guards, the first she’d seen. A few people went in before her; her papers and insignia were scarcely glanced at. Being a Watchspy has its moments, Galen, she thought wryly.

Inside she stood still, utterly astonished.

The Hall of Moons was enormous, so vast the other end was barely visible in the gloomy light. Great windows reached from floor to ceiling on one side; on the other the wall was painted with seven gigantic images of the moons, the features of their surfaces, craters, humps, hills, and valleys. And holding these, as if they were toys, were the seven sisters themselves: Atelgar, Pyra, Lar, all of them, painted ten times life-size in gold and cream.

Cautiously she moved to a desk in the corner. A tall man looked down at her. “Yes?”

“I want to see the records for a Watchhouse. Marn Mountain. Five forty-seven.”

“Your clearance?”

She gave him the insignia, pulling the silver chain over her head. He glanced up, surprised. “Your own house?”

“Yes.”

“This isn’t usually allowed.”

“Even for the silver rank?”

He handed it back slowly. “For what reason?”

Carys looked up at him. All at once she was angry. “The reason is secret. If you’re not able to help me, perhaps I should speak to your Watchmaster.”

The man almost winced. “No need. I’ll see to it,” he said quietly. “Please take desk two forty-six. I’ll bring the record.”

She turned and stalked away, keeping her head up. When she found the desk she lounged there, looking around moodily. Maybe he’d report it. Maybe not. She didn’t really care.

When the records came, they were in three enormous red books. She signed her name for them, then leafed through eagerly, but was soon disappointed.

Each year had the name of the children brought in, and their age, but that was all. No villages, no family names. All the children in Marn Mountain that year had the same surname—Arrin. It had been the castellan’s name, that was why. Briefly she wondered about Carys, but there was no way of finding out.

When she found her own name and number she stared at them coldly for a long moment, as if they belonged to someone else. And in a way they did. It surprised her how bitter she felt then; the Watch had taken everything, her family, even her name. But the Rule said, “The Watch is your name and your family.”

She slammed the book shut and tapped her fingers on it thoughtfully. She’d been stupid to think she could find anything here. They covered their tracks too well; they didn’t want anyone to know too much. As for the Interrex, that would be hopeless.

Abruptly she got up, walked down the endless hall, passed the clerk without a glance, and went out, into the labyrinth.

Braylwin was not impressed. Smoothing the sleeves of a new coat he watched her closely in the mirror. “The Hall of Moons? I went there myself once, years ago. Were you looking for the Interrex, sweetie? Or something else?” His eyes were sharp in his plump face. “Has little Carys being looking for her mummy?”

She ignored him. Instead she said, “Have you ever been to the Overpalace? To the library?”

He shrugged. “Never. It’s not an easy place to get to. And there are no maps of the Overpalace—the place is almost unknowable. The Higher Watchlords may go there, maybe.” He grinned at her. “All those delicious secrets, Carys.”

She nodded, thinking. “It’s guarded, of course.”

“Three bastions, each with a metal door. Once you get inside . . .” He turned, interested. “Do you know what I was once told? Deep under the whole of this mountain are tunnels, a great network of them. Kestcreatures lurk down there, and some of them find their way up through to the passageways and corridors of the Overpalace. They’re allowed to. They crawl about at night. Eat the odd spy, I suppose, or any fanatical keepers who get that far.” He was smirking, enjoying himself.

Suddenly she stared back at him, dubious. “Stories to scare children, Braylwin.”

“Ah, but are they? Who knows what goes on in the Tower of Song—isn’t that a proverb?” He turned back to the mirror and adjusted his sleeves. “Even we in the Watch, beloved, don’t know the half of this place. When it was first taken, patrols often got lost. One group starved; their bones were found days later. Bones, mind. Something ate them. And then there’s the legend of the Lost Hall . . .”

“Go on,” she said drily, peeling a slim-fruit with her knife. She knew he was teasing her, that it might all be lies.

He examined a spot on his chin. “It’s a famous story around the tower. A captain called Feymir was drunk one night, wandered off and got lost. Next morning he put in a report about a great hall he’d found, chock-full of Maker-gadgets. When he tried to find it again he couldn’t. No one ever has. Whatever he’d been drinking, it must have been good.”

Outside the open window, the rain was crashing on a roof.

Braylwin fiddled with his skullcap and stood back. “What do you think?”

“Charming,” she said, eating peel.

He picked a pair of gloves off the table and swished to the door. “Don’t wait up!”

When he’d gone she hurled the knife after him in disgust. It embedded itself in the wood, vibrating. Then, head on hands, she stared grimly out into the rain. What was wrong with her? She’d never felt so useless—as if she were some rat in a maze, going around and around and getting nowhere. Calm down, she told herself furiously. Think! The tower worked on everyone like this; already she’d seen how the people who tried to find out anything in it went away hopeless, baffled, dulled into despair.

But it wouldn’t happen to her!

For the next two days she read files, pored over reports, waded through endless, useless paper. Next she tried to get into the Overpalace. The first set of guards turned her back, despite arguments and passes and bribes. As a last resort she explored restlessly, walking for hours deep into quarters she’d not seen, once into a district not even on the map, a deep warren of disused kitchens and sculleries, down so many stairs they were probably underground. It was dark and empty, and it was down there, at one turn in a corridor, that she stopped, listening, the crossbow in her hands.