Catherine Fisher - The Lost Heiress

“Now you can see it.”

Galen tossed the relic to Raffi; sparks were leaping from it. As he stood there, he seemed strangely taller; the darkness closed in around him. He reached over, caught Alberic’s hand, and pulled him upright. The dwarf stared, astonished, and as Galen looked down at him a sudden shiver of energy moved through their linked fingers, and in an instant of breathtaking clearness everyone saw it, the sharpness of the black eyes, the power that looked out of them, the abrupt shift that made the dark figure something else, something charged, out of myth, out of legend.

Alberic swore, snatching his hand away. Behind him his people stared.

Galen grinned.

“God, keeper,” the dwarf breathed. “What are you?”

“I’m the Crow.” He said it quietly, and the ghost images of seven moons drifted between his fingers. “See it and believe it, thief-lord, because apart from these, you’re the first. Things are changing. The Interrex is found, Anara will have a leader again. And the Order has a home; we’ll make it such a powerhouse it will re-energize the world. Above all, I’ve spoken with the Makers. The Makers are coming back, Alberic.”

The dwarf swallowed. He stood up straight now, breathed easy. “Crackpot fanatics,” he muttered. “I almost believe it.”

“You should. Because I haven’t finished with you.”

“Oh no!” Alberic jumped back. “Oh no. I came looking for you once, but never again! I’ve had my fill of sorcerers. From now on I’ll avoid you like fireseed, Galen Harn.”

Galen nodded darkly. “That’s what you think.”

He turned, took the relic from Raffi, and held it in both hands. It spat and crackled. Suddenly it hummed, and the dwarf stepped closer greedily.

Raffi stood up. To his amazement he saw the tiny screen had lit, and words were racing across it, minute white Maker-words that Galen hurriedly began to read aloud.

. . . Things are desperate; it may be we will have to withdraw. There’s been no word from Earth for months. Worst of all, we’re sure now about Kest. Against all orders, he’s tampered with the genetic material. Somehow, he has made a hybrid out of what was once a . . . Flain fears it has a disturbed nature, certainly a greatly enhanced lifespan . . . When it was let out of the chamber it destroyed all . . .

The screen flickered; Galen frowned and shook it desperately.

. . . We have flung it deep in the Pits of Maar. Kest called it the Margrave. We should have destroyed it. We should . . .

The screen went blank.

In the silence only the fire crackled. Then Raffi said, “That was what I saw in the vision.”

“It’s what rules the Watch,” Carys said in disgust.

Slowly Galen turned the relic over in his hands. He seemed slightly dizzy. Finally he said, “This may tell us more. In Sarres, we might be able to restore it in some way.” He looked at Raffi.

“It seems the Makers have spoken to us again. How can they re-make the world if the most evil of its creatures still lurks here?”

Worried, Raffi said, “What can we do about that?”

The keeper folded his arms. “I don’t know.”

It was dark in the wood now; the fire had sunk. As the Sekoi piled wood on, the flames sparked up and crackled. Alberic yelled at his people, “Get me something to eat! Plenty!”

He sat down by the Sekoi, who said idly, “I suppose there’s no chance, now that you’re cured, of me getting my gold back?”

“Don’t push your luck, tale-spinner. It’s not half what you stole from me.”

“And do you still want me as your prisoner?”

“Want you!” The dwarf put his face close up to it fiercely. “I fully intend never to see any of you scumbags again.”

Carys grinned, and Raffi smiled too. But then he turned and saw Galen. The keeper had a dark, thoughtful look.

Raffi knew it only too well.

It always meant trouble.

The story continues in

RELIC MASTER

Book 3: THE HIDEN CORONET

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.