Catherine Fisher: The Lost Heiress

Raffi nodded, unhappy. “But what about your hand?”

The keeper glared at him. “Leave that to me.”

As Raffi pulled some dried fish from the pack and ate it, Galen worked. He took leaves from the pocket at his waist: salve-all, Flainsglove, agrimony. Some he chewed, others he steeped carefully in cold water, binding them tight against his palm. The water should have been hot, Raffi knew. “Look,” he said, “we could make a fire. The fog will hide it.”

“No time. A few hours’ sleep, that’s all. Then I’ll wake you.”

Raffi lay down. It was useless to argue. Carys might have tried, but he knew better. There was something in Galen that was dark, untouchable: a grimness that all the unhappiness of his life had bred—the destruction of the Order, his hatred of the Watch. “A driven man,” the Sekoi had remarked once, and Raffi knew what it meant. And since Tasceron, since the Crow had possessed him, it was stronger.

He began the night prayer wearily and fell asleep in the middle of it.

When he woke he was stiff and cold and damp. It was still dark. Nettle-rash itched all down his cheek.

Galen was gone.

Instantly, Raffi was alert. He sent sense-lines sprawling and touched the keeper, close, scrambling out of the hole anxiously. In the lane it was deep midnight. The mist had gone; huge and still over the black land hung six of the great moons—Atelgar, Agramon, Pyra, Karnos, craggy Lar, distant Atterix. Fingernails and crescents of pink and blue and pearl.

Galen was standing in the blended light, his arms folded, staring up. As Raffi splashed a puddle he turned, and for a second there was something other in him that looked out, sharpening the blackness of his eyes, his long glossy hair, the muddy coat.

Then it was just Galen.

Raffi swung his pack on reluctantly.

“Slept enough?” The keeper strode off without waiting for an answer, down the moonlit track. “Sleeping and eating, boy. All you’re good for.” He swung his stick down from his back. “Now we step out. We’re meeting the Sekoi at Tastarn, and we need to get there fast.”

“Then what?”

Galen looked at him sidelong. “Then the Interrex.”

“Where do we start looking?”

Galen laughed, that sudden laugh that always turned Raffi cold. “You’ll be surprised,” he said.

ALL THE REST OF THAT NIGHT, as the moons swung slowly above them, they walked, silent; out of the dark and into the morning, the sun breaking through infinite veils of haze over watery fens. Herons rose and flapped; acres of bleak rushes moved and stirred, their seed rising in clouds. The long track led down into hollows and marshy swamps, through endless plantations of spindly willow, and as the sun rose so did the midges, biting and stinging.

At midday, worn and thirsty, they stopped. Galen was sweating, his coat hanging open, and as he ate, Raffi took a sideways look at him. The keeper was ashen, dark hair plastered to his forehead. The Kest-claw’s venom was working in him.

“You should rest.”

Galen rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “Two hours from here,” he said hoarsely, “is Tastarn. I’ll rest there.”

But they went slower, all afternoon. It grew warm, even sultry; far off in the hills thunder growled and cracked. Galen stumbled, as if the energy of it had struck him like a wave. They left the track and crossed a stream, keeping east, through woods of delicate silver sheshorn trees that threshed in the faintest stirring of air. Munching berries, Raffi watched Galen anxiously, but the keeper walked fiercely, relentlessly. It was only when the roofs of Tastarn rose up among the trees that he staggered, crumpling against a great oak by the track.

Raffi raced up. “Sit down!” he said. “Take a rest.”

Galen slid down the tree till he was sitting, and leaned his head back. He looked gray; his hands shook as he dragged the water flask to his lips, then poured it over his face.

Raffi crouched next to him. “Listen. You can’t go into the village, not like this. It’s not safe! We could both be caught too easily.”

The keeper shivered. “Are you trying to give me advice?” he snapped.

“Yes. Stay here. I’ll go in and fetch the Sekoi. He’ll be easy to find.”

There was silence. A soft warm rain began to fall on them, pattering lightly on the leaves overhead. Galen dragged his hair back. Raffi knew he was struggling to think; the fever was confusing him.

“I won’t be long. You’ve got plenty of water. You could sleep.”

“I don’t need sleep.”

“Well, rest. Can you manage some sense-lines?”

Galen glared at him. “Just about.”

“And you’d have the box.” The box was the relic, the light-weapon of the Makers they’d stolen back from Alberic. Since then neither of them had used it. The dwarf might have emptied it of power, Raffi thought suddenly. But no. He wanted it back.

Sweat or rain ran down Galen’s chin. “All right,” he whispered at last. “All right. But be back by dark, Raffi, or I’m coming in to find you.”

Nodding, Raffi slipped off the pack and pushed it into the bracken.

“Wait,” Galen said. “Leave your beads.”

For a moment Raffi hesitated; then he slipped off his two threads of blue and purple beads and put them in the keeper’s hot hand. Without them he felt strange; as if some protection had gone. But Galen was right. It would be safer.

He stood up. “Will you be all right?”

Galen glared at him, furious. Then he said, “Nightfall. Remember.”

With a grin Raffi turned and ran down the track into the soft rain, and only when he got down to the stream did he glance back.

Galen was gone. Only a quivering of branches showed where he’d moved. For a moment Raffi felt guilty, leaving him, but there was no choice. And it should be easy to find the Sekoi.

Oddly happy, he jumped the stream and crossed a field of sheep, climbing a wall into a narrow road. Small houses loomed out of the rain, a goat chewing thoughtfully outside the nearest.

He walked warily into the village. It was busy. A small market was going on in the main street; he heard and smelled it even before he turned the corner. Pens of squalling hens and slow black cattle bellowing their discomfort; men standing around a great bull; stalls of hot bread and cooked meats, clothes, garish rings and belts. He wished he had some money, just to buy something. Not wanting to speak to anyone, he wandered around, hands in pockets, watching carefully. Above the marketplace rose the ominous black Watchtower; he could see men on its roof. A group of them moved through the market too, wearing the usual dark motley of worn armor, whips tied around their waists. The crowd opened for them, no one looked around.

Raffi backed away, behind a food stall. An old man was there, his arm deep in a barrel puling out apples.

Raffi decided to take a risk. “I’m looking for a Sekoi,” he said quietly. “Tall. Brindled, a zigzag under one eye. Have you seen it?’

“Seen it!” the old man grunted, straightening. He looked at Raffi curiously. “It’s been cleaning everyone out for days. In Marcy’s, it’ll be.”

“Marcy’s?”

The old man wheezed. Then he turned Raffi around and pointed. “Marcy’s, son. Not for the likes of you.”

It was a low, squalid building, the roof patched and the windows all but smothered in ivy. One dim door hung open; even from here he could smell the stink of the place.

“Take my advice.” The old man leaned back into the barrel. “Keep your hand on your money.”

“Thanks,” Raffi muttered.

Squeezing between cattle, pigs, sausage-sellers, jugglers, he made his way up to the broken hanging shutter of a window and peered in.

The room was smoky; fires burned there, and lamps were lit. It was crammed with men, a noisy, jostling, uproarious crowd. In the middle was a table and around it some players were gambling at cards. Large piles of gold coins were stacked in front of them. Three of the players Raffi could see, the other was hidden by the passing crowd.